FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

1. Two in the nest and one strung from the branch.

Chapter 1.1

Seven o'clock. Morning. That's what the nightstand clock told me. I stared at the ceiling and reminded myself of the time by counting each second as they ticked to the heartbeat strumming on my eardrums.

7:00:01. 7:00:02. 7:00:03. 7:00:04. 7:00:05. 7:00:06...

My forehead throbbed, and I palmed it with both hands. The monotony kept my eyes open, but it was painful.

7:01:23. 7:01:24. 7:01:25...

The thunderstorm birthed a crack in the ceiling I hadn't noticed before. Dark patches grew around it like malignant cancer, and the moisture welled and dripped onto the floor. It was out of tune and didn't time with the beats. It was annoying.

7:03:32. 7:03:33. 7:03:35... 7:04:36...

I lost count after 200.

I lurched into the bathroom and caught myself on the edge of the sink. I waited, with my head drooped over the bowl, for the icy floor to warm my feet before I attempted to be alive. After I peeled back my eyelids with a thumb and forefinger, I tried to gaze into the mirror but struggled to find an image through the layer of gunk that caulked my eyeballs. It was probably for the best. Spotty and mangled hair, bloodshot eyes, canker sores, breath that could kill the undead--I couldn't stand to think of it. It's depressing to realize that even your own body didn't respect you. The feeling was mutual.

The eye-gunk crumbled in flakes when I brought the effort to dig them out. "All right, guy, I know that you hate me, and I hate you. But we're in it for the long haul, you son of a bitch, so we mind as well make it work out," I grumbled to the ogre in the mirror. Goddamn was he an ugly fucker.

I fished through the crowd of bottles in the cabinet underneath the sink, shucking them out one-by-one until I found it: my flask of effervescent mouthwash. I uncorked it and drank in with my head tilted up to savor the sensation of the green liquid cauterizing the morning aftertaste. Oh yeah, that's the stuff, hits the spot good. I brought out the best bubblies on the worst days. It made the hurt and pain of life go away in a day's worth of burning spearmint.

I left the mouthwash to foam and swirl down the drain and stumbled to the kitchen.

My stomach howled and screamed at me like a spoiled brat nearing the candy aisle of a supermarket, and I listened to it. Oh sure, I knew the fucking bag of backed-up acids and mucus would like nothing more than to hurl breakfast back out just to be a little cocksucker. But damn it, the bastard wanted to be fed, and I was obliged to indulge it. You obey your body, full stop. Unfortunately, your body is never obligated to return in kind.

I reached for the refrigerator. "Just some protein, Lyle. Just get some protein into your body, wake up, and make those bastards at Summit happy."

My foot slipped and my body, reaching beyond its center of gravity, gave way, and my hands pained red after I slapped them against the counter. I grasped it for dear life and steadied myself from the fall. The foot that slipped felt like it was standing in mud. I bent it up and scooped the goop off my soles. The residue from the mess clung to my hands when I shook it off, and the sludge burrowed between my toes and refused to evacuate. As if triggered on cue, something dripped into my hair in plops. The goo drenched through my hair, and I struggled from clawing my scalp off. My stomach stopped complaining.

I abandoned the wastelands of the kitchen for the safety of the living room, not taking the time to catch my breath from the revulsion. Ah, the dearest living room--the last refuge of man. But something felt wrong. It looked fine at a glance, but nature birthed eyes to deceive. My feet knew the truth when the carpeting hissed like a mushy sponge as they sulked across it. The fibers couldn't contain the water and formed foot-shaped ponds after my feet lifted from the carpet. A bone-chilling gust blew through the room, and I ducked my head into the neck of my shirt to shield myself from the morning's spittle.

Confused, I turned up and expected to discover that the storm had torn off the roof, but it was intact. I examined the room and, on closer inspection, found an open window allowing in remnants of the storm. With a sigh, I stepped over the planters scuttled from the sill, closed the window, and then slumped onto the couch. As I leaned against the cushions, I sopped my foot into the carpet to clean the goop off the soles.

"What a horrible night," I mumbled. Sad for me and horrible for my apartment. Poor thing didn't stand a chance against the maelstrom from pulverizing it into bits. It couldn't withstand the onslaught of the elements as they violated its kitchen even though no windows were in that room. It writhed in agony as the wind drenched the living room with torrential fury even though the window was closed last night. Yes, my poor place was no match for nature's elements.

Come to think of it, something didn't seem right.

Not yet ready to consider issues of logic, my head throbbed at the perplexity and forced itself between my knees. My brain frazzled and only allowed me to admire my carpet. Synthetic blue fibers woven in curt stubbles, like the kind you find in an office room except more inhospitable. It looked nice as long as you didn't have to step in it. Though, I had to admit those three-toed footprints were a nice decorative feature.

Three-toed footprints?

There they were: three-toed and partially webbed imprints waterlogged in pools against the carpeting. Like a lizard's almost.

Just like a lizard.

Lizard.

Son of a bitch.

Chapter 1.2

SX14's brakes squealed in earnest through her slid into the station, and when she finally stopped, her pumps hissed in release as she took a breather before her haul to Summit. The doors squeaked closed behind me since I was the last in the throng to board. I took a window seat on the far end away from the herd.

Leftover clouds from the thunderstorm arranged themselves on the morning sky like silverware ordered in rows for breakfast. The sun, enthusiastic to return after a day and night of loneliness, radiated through them and drenched the windows with warmth and light. Its greeting filtered through in spurts as the train wove between buildings and through tunnels. I waved goodbye to what little I could see of it when the windows dimmed to form a canvas for the morning news and announcements to play on. I needed to think by myself.

God, Isian lizards. Had I been imagining things? I recalled bits and pieces of an image of a pair of walking, talking lizards barging into my apartment in the middle of the night. I dismissed them as remnants of some fever dream. I mean, I've dreamt up worse things while high on meds, such as one where Bigfoot crashed into my place, ate all my food, defecated on my carpet, and finally molested my cat. The reason I understood it to be a dream was because I knew no cat would ever want to own me.

But giant sentient lizards coming to room with you? Bah, perish that nonsense.

If I had any delusions left from my morning-sick psychosis, reality squished them like roaches when I moved the couch to clean the mess and found the twins' knapsacks lodged behind it. They contained everything and everything that an adult feral Isian needed to thrive in the wild: stale strings of some indeterminate meat, some bottles of fluid, shiny rocks and pieces of concrete, random objects of unknown purposes (I think one of them was a rolled-up ball of aluminum foil), and pricy computer units. One tablet was still paged onto an overhead map of the city. Route markers tagged the map in a more-or-less straight path from Summit to my apartment, all 46.2447 kilometers of it.

Isian lizards came to my home. Two of them! It defied belief. One day I'm living the carefree bachelor's life without a worry or goddamn in the world and right the next day I'm... well, still a bachelor, but now one with two predatory beasties that ate more than he could possibly afford.

I didn't know how much a full-grown Isian consumes, but I had a reliable estimate. Based on data I gathered from observing them over the past months, I used advanced mathematical algorithms and statistical analysis to get the highly scientific answer of: Way-Too-Fucking-Much-For-Lyle-To-Afford kg. Hell, I only needed to look at my poor kitchen. I actually went back and, honest to God, opened the refrigerator to discover that even my collection of years-old anchovies from the back wastelands were gone. I choked when I remembered they were carnivorous--meat is expensive, damn it! Unless I planned on subsisting on fiber supplements, ramen, baking soda, and other non-foodstuff, I needed to find a way to feed these new sets of meat-loving mouths.

And what about their beds? In Summit, they slept everywhere they damned well pleased. It worked there since it was huge, but that wouldn't be possible in my mouse cage of an apartment. I had a feeling they would get bored with my room and end up wandering to God-knows-where.

Jesus, my neighbors! How the hell would they react to reptilian beasts wandering about the building? If I was lucky, none of them would know about the Isians yet considering the twins came in late at night and left early in the morning. But luck is something you always ran short of. Before I would know it, Grandma Janice down the hall would be batting lizards with her broom while the old timers that haunted the rec room would be recalling The War in the bottom of their trousers. I shuddered to think of how my bastard of a landlord would react. After all, the apartment had an unconditional no-pets rule.

Oh lord, were they housetrained? I had no clue, and it terrified more than anything else I could think of.

I leaned back into the seat and dug my head into the depression in the foam headrest. Too much had happened in the last ten hours, and I was too tired trying to come to terms with them all at once. I slumped in the seat and contented myself that I was but one in a long and prestigious line of victims of unwanted houseguests. My conscience, however, refused to leave the matter at rest. Tired of heeding to logic, I let emotion run free for a bit and argue with itself.

What the hell are you thinking, Lyle? Do you really need this? The single life not good for you? Have you reached that point in your life where you're just dying to have more ridiculous responsibilities? People do that to make themselves feel like they're worth something, you know. Is that it?

"No, not really. I feel worse."

Oh, so that's why you're rooming with the twins, right?

"I didn't let them stay with me so that I could be miserable, if that's what you meant."

Then why?

"That's what people do. They help each other out."

If those Isians are people, then I'm the Pope of Mars. Listen, if they really wanted to help you, they would have kidnapped a hooker, steal all her money, and bring her unconscious body and cash to your doorstep so that you can finally get some goddamn pussy. That'd be helping. That'd be helping a lot.

"I meant for me to help them, not the other way around, Christ. It's not a bad thing to help others, you know."

So you're helping them by letting them freeload. Grand, that's so much better. You know, maybe you wouldn't be miserable if you tried growing a spine or something. I'm just saying.

"What do you suggest I should've done? Just kick them back out in the cold rain? I wouldn't throw fucking mutts out in that weather, let alone my friends."

Friends? Wait, those scaly things are your friends now?

"Yes."

Oh God. This is even worse. Whatever, I don't care what your proclivities are and whom you associated with. Your business. But there's still time to make it right before they can get comfortable.

"Eh?"

Throw them the fuck out. Right now. Get on the train back, throw their shit out, change the lock codes, and bolt the damned windows shut. It's the only way.

"There you go again being an asshole. I'm not doing that."

Why the hell not? You actually want to live with them for God-knows how long? Is that what you want?

"No, it's just that--"

Then what? This is your fucking place and your fucking rules. No one will blame you. What's keeping you? What the hell is your malfunction?

"I just can't stand to see Tia cry again."

Screeches from the train's brakes drowned my thoughts, and I tensed in my seat to fight the inertia from toppling me over. I quickly exited and left my conscience to its musings.

---

Life rumbled in the Spire's belly as usual. Rumbling in a kind of lurching, living dead sort of way. It was Monday after all, that hallowed day of your work's vengeance. Weekends are narcotics. You take your fix to escape that hard week you just had and wallow in its brand of ecstasy. But it never lasts long enough. You only get a taste, just this tantalizing bit dipped on the tip of your tongue, before the rush dies and your skull gets smashed a hundred kilometers an hour into the wall of withdrawal. Week-in and week-out, you toiled for days breaking your bones and beating your body climbing that ladder to reach those couple days of nirvana with outstretched hands. And at the end, you can only crash back down after you've run out of rungs.

I waded my way through the crowd of zombies that just went cold turkey from the drug. Their withdrawal symptoms usually subside by Tuesday, and they'll get back to normal by Wednesday only to plunge into remission by Friday's end. Repeat. Nasty stuff. It's a good thing I worked seven days a week. I've always been a staunch anti-drug person myself.

Still like the trained corporate drone that I was, though, I pushed myself to set aside life's worries and Isians and whatever else to focus on the greater cause of making the company money. Before I went to the labs and put my game face on, I thought to stop by the reception desk to indulge in last-minute frivolities. Aimee, in an act of brilliant redundancy, was hunched over and working on a computer. Mondays meant nothing to a machine.

I tapped for attention on her desk. "Hey Aimee, lookin' good."

Aimee looked up and drilled her eyes into me. She took longer to process my mug than was customary, and I found myself checking over my clothes for bird shit or piss or bloodstains or some other inner-city mess. Maybe my awesome good looks finally broke her? It took several seconds for her to untangled the words stuck in her memory banks.

"Mr. Ivano!"

"Yeah. Morning Aim--"

She reached over and took my shoulder like a vice. Not able to withstand her inhuman grip, my body slacked and allowed her to pull me around the front of the desk next to her, and she plopped me down onto the floor. My last sentence finished in a yelp when my pelvic bone pinched my ass against the marble. Shielded from the lobby inside the well of the circular desk, I had no view save for Aimee towering over me and scanning the lobby with precise flicks of her head. Seemingly satisfied, she tapped on the computer and knelt by me.

"God, what the heck, Aimee?" I said, arching my bottom up to rub it. "You're going way too fast. We haven't even dated yet."

She leaned close and whispered. "Mr. Ivano, where have you been?"

Whispering--I didn't know it was a feature on her model. When you hear a robot whispering to you, sounding like a squeaky mouse wheel that needed to be oiled, you paid attention because it unnerved the ears. I sat up.

"Where have you been?" she repeated.

"I was home. I just came to work." I said it slowly, trying to gauge her reaction, but got nothing. She sat next to me and crossed her arms around her legs. "What's going on here?"

"Everyone's been looking for you all morning."

"Looking for me? Why?"

"Please stop, Mr. Ivano. We have enough to worry about without your irreverence. You know why."

"No, Christ I don't. You mind filling an idiot in?"

"Mr. Ivano, are you honestly not aware of the Isians?"

"What about them?"

"They have been missing all of yesterday and have not appeared this morning either."

"Yeah, because they've been at my home."

Aimee twisted her head and stared at me. For the second time, I thought she broke again when her face jammed as if my statement blew out the power above her neck. I tried to eke an expression out of her by waving. She restored a frown with a single shake of the head.

"Aimee?"

"I think you should talk to Mr. Lefko. I had asked for him to come. He wishes to speak to you. I hope he will be here soon."

Just as she uttered the prayer, the divine answered with a bellow that echoed over the desk: "Hey! Aimee! Where are ya?" Automatically, Aimee planted her feet to the floor and untangled herself up with robotic grace. She dragged me up along with her and jerked me standing. I had to grab the edge of the desk to prevent myself from losing my balance, contrasting to Aimee standing like a soldier at attention.

"Over here, Mr. Lefko," she called.

"Dammit, Aimee, how many times have I told you to never call me--" Ernest cast his gaze to me when I waved hello. "Lyle! Where in the hell have you been?"

I shrugged. "Making out with Aimee. You know Ernest, robots aren't as good as they say."

"Goddammit kid, this isn't no time to play games! Half of fuckin' Summit is looking for you, and you're here cracking jokes like an idiot. Shove it!"

The shockwave from Ernest slapping the desk shook my hands off the edges. I stepped back and met his glare. His eyes burned me through with righteous brimstone. I turned to Aimee, hoping for consolation, but she just stood. He leaned over the desk with his hands spread over the surface and arms looking to swallow me.

"Where's the lizards, Lyle?"

"I don't understand. What's going on?"

"I asked you where the fuck the lizards are."

"I don't know. I didn't see them this morning."

"'This morning?' So you knew where they were?"

"Yes, they came to my place the other night."

"Your place? They came to your place?"

"That's... what I said, yeah. They said they were going to stay with me for a while."

His eyes flew open. He blinked a few times, breathed in deeply, and opened his mouth. I slunk back and braced myself for the scolding that I knew was incoming. What I got instead was boisterous laughter. The bellows echoed through the lobby and incited gawks from passersby. He clutched his gut and doubled over the desk, and his cheeks heaved until they flushed from exertion. The guffaw was so insistent that it became a parasite, and it wormed into me as a larval chuckle. It never grew since it didn't know what the hell it was supposed to feed on. Aimee just stood.

He puffed out his red cheeks, swallowed, and tempered his laughter enough to speak. "Ah Lyle, you son of a bitch! I swear, just when I thought I knew you," he said between wheezes. He grabbed my shoulder and patted me on the back. "All this time they've been worried to death, all this damn time. A-haha! Christ!"

I just nodded as he rubbed my back.

"So he is not in any sort of trouble, Mr. Lefko?" Aimee asked.

"What trouble?" I said.

"Nah," Ernest said to Aimee. "Don't think he has anything to worry about, just so long as the lizards are safe. This whole thing was about them after all. You know how much Tetra loves those goddamned things."

"What trouble?" I said again.

"Oh, that is good," Aimee said. "I am glad that they will not have to deploy those military mechs."

"Military mechs?" I said.

Ernest shook his head and patted Aimee's shoulder. "Don't worry 'bout it, gal. Mils are too expensive to deploy anyway. You know how this place is with their goddamned money. I mean they would at least give him until noon before releasing the kill-bots."

"True," said Aimee, nodding.

I nearly screamed my words.

"What the hell? Kill-bots? Deploy? Me? What's going on here, guys?"

Ernest smiled, took my arm to lead me out from the desk, and said, "Don't worry about that, kid. Everything's fine now, you just let ol' Ernest take care of this." He straightened my collar. "All you have to worry about now is that Wyvern broad. She came in last night. Been having fits all morning."

"Ms. Neuman was quite distressed," said Aimee.

"Yep. Been around all morning yelling and screaming and moaning and groaning about this and about that and about these and about those and everything else. Oh boy. The last time I heard screeching like that was when I bought that thong for the wife, God bless her soul. Oh I eventually got her wearing that slinky little thing all right, and lemme tell you..."

I didn't see a point in lingering. As much I liked hearing about old grandmas and lingerie and the wearing of such lingerie by said grannies, I had more important things to take care of, such as driving a rusty nail through my toes (no disrespect to the late Mrs. Lefko of course). Convinced that I had nothing more to learn here, I backed away so the two hens could cluck among themselves, and I left with with more questions than answers.

A contingent of security guards milled in the hallways joining the engineering labs. The Secondary Engineering guards with their brown garbs wandered about in search of invisible wrongdoers as per usual operations. But something else was amiss. I peeked inside the hallway. Tucked inside was an even larger group of aliens, clad in black and ordered in rows in the hall. I froze a few steps in. Sigma Security. What the hell were blacksuits doing here?

The "blacksuits," so-called due to their full armored suits that covered their bodies (any similarities of the name with certain despotic World War II-era police groups weren't incidental), were the armed professionals that Tetra hired to secure Primary Sigma and related labs. A somehow-legal paramilitary force was what they amounted to, really. You couldn't find them anywhere else but Sigma and from myths spread by whispers. But I walked passed at least twenty of these mythical beings equipped with menacing assault rifles and opaque riot helmets that concealed their faces. Their uniform and equipment alongside their years of training had dissolved their human identities and transformed them into machines, just the way your private military contractors like them. Not to be outdone by meat-bodies, a couple military-grade sentry bots patrolled the hallways, their cold forms a touch more soulless than their human comrades.

Three guards at PE-1. Three guards at PE-2. Four guards and a robot at Administration. Two guards at SE-1. The stock of Tetra's army replaced the coffee-fueling engineers that loitered in the hallways. As the lone mortal in the corridor, I slunk through the gauntlet as not to attract attention.

"Hey, how's it going?" I said to a guard posted at the entrance of SE-2. It didn't respond. The door opened and I hurried in.

I hugged my back against the door when it slid shut behind me. Missing lizards, Aimee and Ernest freaking out, the Gestapo... you think there was a connection? And maybe, just maybe, I was at the center of it all? It was just something tingling in the back of my head. Call it a hunch. You don't get perks like these working in any ordinary company, no sir. These were government-level benefits.

The smart thing to do would be run out the building to the nearest airport and book a ticket to Tijuana. (Or walk out, since you're not supposed run past rabid dogs--maybe you can skip as compromise.) Just bail on life. I would think that's the normal response when normal people hear they were close to being victims of military robots. Maybe I figured "kill-bots" was high-tech military jargon for, I don't know, kittens or something. Small fluffy kittens with missile launchers.

"What do you mean you don't know where he is? Aren't you his damned boss?" someone screeched and broke through my thoughts. I perked up. That voice! If you strain your ears deep until the world sounded underwater, you could almost make out the songbird that the shrieking caws were mobbing to death. I can recall only two people at Summit whose voice had such range. Just my luck, the other also happened to be in the same room! What are the odds? It's like winning the shitcake lottery.

"Hey babe, I ain't his goddamned momma. He's a big boy if you haven't fucking noticed," the other voice bellowed.

I peered to the arena. Sure enough, there they were: Mark and the "Wyvern broad" Ernest had mentioned. They glared at each other something fierce. Arlene's fists clenched tightly at her sides, and she stood with her neck strained up to meet Mark's eyes. She trembled on her heeled shoes as a condemned building seconds away from demolition. Mark smirked with crossed arms and the detonator.

Arlene brought an arrowed finger to Mark's face.

"Listen to me and listen good. I've been fed bullshit from you and everyone else at Summit all morning, and I'm sick of it. Either you tell me what I want to know or, so help me, I'll have your head!"

"Oh you just wanted head, is that it?" He started undoing his belt. "Hey babe, I gotta get before I give. Let me unzip my pants here, and you can get started."

"Don't you ever call me 'babe' again, you slimeball!"

"Whatever turns you on, toots."

Arlene's glasses couldn't contain her widened eyes and slipped to the tip of her nose. She flared a reddened fist open and bowed it above her head. Mark stooped down a head's length and tilted a cheek toward her with a clownish grin. That was enough for me. God knows I didn't want to be a passive witness to the beating the beast would inflict on the twig--my conscience wouldn't let sleep. Besides, Mark was a heavy bastard, and I couldn't haul him to St. Lucy's by myself. I hurried down to the arena.

"Hey guys, ease up!" I called out. "Not in front of the children."

With her hand still suspended in the air, Arlene flicked her head to source my voice. Her face locked to me, and she slowly pivoted in her place. I stopped and she glared at me with a heavy gaze that quickly furrowed into anger. Mark stepped away and mouthed a silent, "Oh shit."

"That's him!" she shouted, wriggling a finger at me.

The shriek bound my legs stiff, and before I could shit out a response, my arms were twisted behind me and my head was jerked back until I was staring at lights. My legs gave way and I crumpled to me knees. I tried to break free, but was rewarded with my head jammed back until I couldn't breathe. I tried to take in air, but something covered my mouth with rubber grips that injected an industrial stench into my nostrils. I tried to scream, but nothing came out except jagged wheezes. The rubber tightened over my face chaffed off the skin. The pain from my strained shoulders tied me to the ground. My eyes watered and the world brightened until it looked like a sheen of oil had doused it. The lights then became distant. I struggled to reach them. No use.

Before the lights could die, the gloves came off my mouth and my head was forced down. A tug on my hair shook the air out and compelled me to breathe. I could only taste the fresh air before my head was yanked back up to look at Arlene. She was maybe a meter away, but the room seemed inadequate to cage her. I could see her grind her teeth together, and I could hear it. It was the sound of knives sharpening upon each other. My mind raced. Don't make sudden movements. Don't make loud noises. Don't make eye contact. On my knees and still trying to heave the life back into me, I could only wait for her to make the first move. She stared down at me.

"Where are they, Lyle?"

Her tone was colder than I expected, and it chilled my ears. I wandered my eyes around the room to find support from my colleagues. No one, not even Mark. I took in more breaths. Anyone and anything! I was alone in a locked cage. My eyes crept back up to the woman but stopped at her neck. Don't look at its eyes, that only enrages them.

That wasn't good enough for her. She clenched my chin up to her and snapped her fingers to my face. "Hey! Are you listening to me?" She grabbed my ears and shook my head until it hurt. "Where are they, Lyle? Where are the Isians?"

"I... they..." Repeatedly, I tried to start again only for the words to fracture under her stare. Nothing but sputters. I gave up. My lips fused together, and I closed my eyes. Don't make noises. It startles them and they'll attack. Breathe, breathe!

Not allowing me to suck in another gulp of air, a sharp crack smashed across my face. The smack blew my eyes open and rattled through my skull. Before I could register the pain, Arlene grabbed me by the collar, forced me to my feet, and slammed my back against the thug, who then bolted his hands onto my shoulders. Arlene pressed a fist into my throat so that I could only defend myself with gargles.

"Where are my lizards?!" she screamed, blasting her words through my eardrums.

"I don't know!" I yelped. Her rage had knocked the sense and words back into me, but I was babbling on instinct.

"Don't lie to me!"

"I don't know! I don't know!"

"Why don't you know? Why? Answer me! Answer me, Lyle!"

"I just don't!"

Welled-up tears begged their way out my eyes. I pinched my eyelids to shut them in. It was the final effort to the masculinity I had left. The woman snapped me in half like a rotten toothpick. Arlene's noose lightened around my neck as I did everything I could from breaking down into a crying mess. She released me. I heard a few clack-clacks of heels on the floor and then rummaging off somewhere. Crashes echoed through the numb room as stuff broke against the floor, the sounds of which repeated in increasing frequency. The clacks sounded again, coming louder toward me, and I braced myself. I winced when she tapped my cheek several times, the skin still raw from the slap.

"Open your eyes and look at this," she said.

Cautiously, I peeled open my eyes and found myself looking into the screen of a smart tablet. Arlene held the device close to my face, which thankfully blocked her head. I stared into the screen at rows of text and icons. "If you don't know, then explain this to me," she said, pushing the tablet even closer to my face.

Déjà vu. My reading and inductive skills crept back. At the center of the screen, buried among random elements, glowed a snippet of text:

Primary Network: I.C. Wyvern Stage 1 (restricted public)

Sender: Tiamat Cusaris (reg.)

Recipient: Arlene E. Neuman (reg.)

Protocol: ICN-L v2.3a

Encryption: None

Timestamp: 3433s,45593

Additional Information Hidden

Hi Arlene! We just got to Lylee's house. He has such a great place! You should see it. It's beautiful. Anyway, since we're here now you don't have to worry about finding a place for us anymore. Lylee promised he'd take care of us and everything. It's going to be so much fun!

Can you get another tube of medicine for basil? His throat is pretty bad from the rain. Lylee doesn't have any.

Love, Tia

I read the message once. Twice. Many times. Too many times. I blinked my eyes and strained them wider trying to make sense of it. Arlene sighed and pulled the tablet away from my head, leaving me to stare out into space in disbelief. She cleared her throat and tapped her foot impatiently. I shifted my eyes to look at her while keeping my head still.

"Well? Care to explain it?" she asked.

Care to explain this? Explain what? Was she mad because she got a letter? Was that it? Did that enrage her? Was it such a grave insult? What the fuck was there for me to explain? I didn't even write the goddamn thing! I said, "It's a letter, I think." What else was I supposed to say?

"Just a letter, huh Lyle?" she said with a sneer. "Just a letter to keep us of your trail, is that right?"

"What are you on about? Keep you off what?" I tried straightening myself up, but the goon pressed my shoulders back down.

"Don't play stupid with me, Ivano! Just fess up! I know everything."

"Fess up? What am I confessing? I don't know what the hell you're talking about!"

She squeezed the smart tablet until it bowed and then threw the flopping screen away behind her. Again, I straightened myself up in defense when she came up to me. She brought up her hand, and I tensed. Stay fucking still. It won't hit you again if you stay still. Instead, she gripped her fist close to my face and squeezed the blood into it. She flicked out a finger between my eyes.

"So, you like playing games? You just love hearing how smart you are, eh?"

I parted my lips, but she jabbed my jaw shut with her other hand. The thug behind me brought a hand over my mouth.

"All right Lyle, I'll play your game," she said with a condescending sneer, tapping her outstretched finger on my drenched forehead. "I'll play along with your stupid little game."

She circled me as she spoke, and her laughing howls that echoed through the room were an invitation for other scavengers to the fray. They didn't come because they didn't need to: her own fangs were enough shred into my flesh and bone. I couldn't do anything but stand like the prey I was when she started her attack.

"So Lyle? How much do they pay you here? Couldn't be much, I'd imagine, you being the skill-less loser that you are. Not enough to live that mansion you always dreamed about? Couldn't buy that yacht you always wanted? Not enough to buy those thirteen whores-for-girlfriends you lusted over since the second grade? I'm pretty sure you don't, because you're just too worthless for them to pay you anything. But that's not good enough for you, right? You simply need more. No, I mean, you deserve more, right? Deserve the riches of the world because you're just oh-so-much better than the rest of the hardworking and honest people of the world. Scum!

"But hey, you're a reasonable guy, right? You're just biding your time. You can handle a couple of years of this stuff, just until you get enough to leave this hellhole and get somewhere else. Someplace even more worthless than this dump. Someplace where you can get that night-shift management position you always dreamed about. Finally, you can sit around in your nice white shirt you bought for three dollars and tax and lord over those minimum-wage slops. Oh, you might even get to wear a tie! Just five more years here before you finally can get your dream job. That'll show those corporate assholes, wouldn't it? Bastard!

"Oh, but something happened, didn't it? Messed up your glorious and intricate plan. Because suddenly, one day, someone had to come and show you up. Company hires a hotshot new guy, younger, faster, and much smarter than you are, and will ever be. Now you're not the top dog anymore, you're just a second-place lackey loser. Loser! Everything you worked for, gone! And on top of that insult, it wasn't just some college grad who graduated magna cum laude from an Ivy League, but a couple of goddamn animals! Animals! That outrage just got your blood boiling, didn't it Ivano? Something had to go, and you made damned sure that it wasn't you. Right? You son of a bitch!"

She spat those last few words in my face. She placed her hands on cocked hips and looked on with the satisfaction of someone who just strangled a child to death.

"Am I right?" she said. "Or did I get some things wrong? So who did you sell them to? How much did you get for them? I always wanted to know what the rate is on morality."I

"I... what the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh cut the shit, Ivano, I know all about it! Kidnap the Isians, sell them to some shady dealer for who-knows-how-much, create a bogus message that you sent from your own computer at home to keep everyone off your back. Be once in your life a goddamn man and admit it!"

I yelled at her. "No! What the fuck is wrong with you? You don't know me!"

Arlene seemed shocked from my outburst. The reaction surprised even me.

Something broke inside. Suddenly, I felt a drive to blow through her insanity, a power activated after she crossed some moral line drawn at the idea I was willing to sell out the Isians. We stood against each other in silent deadlock. I didn't look away from her confused stare as my manhood jolted back. Pain seared my palms from my nails digging into them, but I didn't care. Arlene continued to stare at me, which gave me a moment's breather to resurrect myself. Fuck you woman! No fucking way am I a backstabbing kidnapper! I tempted fate and pulled out against the goon behind me. Arlene dropped her jaw to peek out a word, but I cut her off.

"You've heard of Occam's Razor, right? Ever considered that instead of a giant conspiracy of me spending months befriending Isians so that I can kidnap them, I just may be a decent guy? You know, like most everyone else on earth? I know that's kind of tough for you to understand, Arlene, but not everyone in the world is a cankerous bitch like you!"

My facial muscles tensed with that last shot in preparation to receive another slap. I didn't care. I pulled harder against the thug and forced him to wrestle me back in. Air snorted out my nostrils when my cheeks hollowed out, and I turned the side of my face toward Arlene and dared her to take out another hit. Do it, you fucking bitch. You know you want it. The Mark Ellis impression must have stunned her. Her mouth quivered as if words had bottled in her throat, and when she finally spoke, her voice fizzled dry.

"So, you're saying that really went to stay with you? In their own volition?"

"Yes, goddammit! Yes! That's what happened."

"And you have nothing to hide?"

"God no. That misunderstanding was all yours."

"Then explain to me why you disabled Tia's tracking module."

I cringed. "What tracking module?"

"The tracker. The one embedded in Tia's collar? Don't tell me you didn't know." She pointed accusingly at me. "Don't you dare tell me you didn't know."

"Christ." I struggled to recall previous night. She was wearing her collar, wasn't she? She must have, I know it! What's going on here? "I don't know anything about any tracker."

"Oh? You don't? Because as it so happened, it was disabled early last night, just as the twins disappeared from Summit. You sure you don't know anything about it?"

"Maybe it got damaged when they walked to my place? It was raining pretty hard."

"This is military-grade equipment you're talking about, and it takes more than a little drizzle to destroy it. It was disabled. We received a kill signal just as it died. You can't do that accidentally. It takes someone with some skill to do that. Someone with skill but not a lot of sense." She came close to my face and glared. "Like say, a Tetra engineer?"

Her accusation took a few seconds to bite in. I flung against the goon only to be pushed back out. My cheeks ballooned, unprepared to receive the influx of air, and my throat choked it out again.

"Oh God, no! I had nothing to do with it! For fuck's sakes Arlene!"

"Then who? Who? Who wouldn't want us to know where they were? Right now you're the only one I can see, Lyle!"

"No! No, no, no! This is bullshit, nothing happened! They came to my apartment and that was it! I don't know what the hell you think I did or who I am, but I don't care. I could've said no, I could've told them to go away, but I didn't. You know why? Because I'm a goddamn friend, and this is what goddamn friends do!"

I was nearly in tears. That miraculous pool of courage had dried up, and I was dredging mud. It was over. I didn't care anymore. The shot of adrenaline frayed my vocal cords into crackling shreds and burned through my energy. It was no longer a fight for me to win. No longer wanting to wrestle with my legs, I let myself go and felt the crunch of my kneecaps striking the floor. As a last act of bravery, I faced Arlene in defeat. She had her hands over her mouth and stepped back.

"Oh my God," she said, her hands muffling her words. "You're telling the truth, aren't you? Let him go. Let him go, you idiot!"

The guard released his hands from my shoulders, and I slumped on the floor. The joint between my neck and shoulders found the end of a desk and followed it until my body bowed across the floor. No use righting myself up. Arlene knelt by me. With my head drooped down, I could only see her legs straining through a skirt and perched atop glossy heels. They were pretty legs.

She tapped my shoulders--I almost didn't feel it when it brushed against my shirt. I strained my head up and saw a face drained of malice and vigor. Her dark hair frayed around the glasses that framed her cheeks. It was a pretty face.

"Lyle, listen. I just need to know where are. That's it, okay? Can you tell me that?"

"I don't know. I really don't. They came last night and left somewhere before I woke up."

"Ah." She sighed. It was a pretty sigh.

"I'm sorry, Arlene."

She was about to say something when a voice across the room bullied its way in. It was the voice of my savior. "Hey! Hey! Miss! Ah, miss!" Shallow, jagged breaths wove between the words as the person struggled to keep pace jogging down the steps to the arena. He wiped a layer of sweat off his brow, bent over, and panted with his hands on his knees after reaching us.

I looked up to him. "Ernest?"

He clutched his chest and gestured me to wait with a wave of his hand. He stood up, took a breath with a cough, and straightened his pants back up. A couple of blacksuits challenged him with their rifles, but he knocked away the guns with an irritated scoff. He stretched his arms to me.

"Dammit kid, what the hell are you doing running away and getting yerself into trouble before I can take care of things? You wanna get blasted by these numbskulls here or something?"

"That wasn't really my plan, no."

He chuckled and saw Arlene staring at him in confusion. He took off his fedora and placed it over his chest as she rose to her feet.

"And you are?" she asked.

Ernest bowed his head. "The humble Ernest Lefko, Summit Engineering Department, at your service, ma'am. And you must be this Arlene Neuman that I've been hearing about. A pleasure to finally meet your acquaintance." He took the back of her hand and placed a kiss on it.

"Uh, yes, Mr. Lefko," Arlene said, her voice lingering as he did with her hand. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Just Ernest. Or Ernie, like all my friends do."

"Right, Ernest. What do you want?"

"Ah well, I see you have been making chit-chat with my pal Lyle here, yeah?"

She eyed me. "We've been talking about some things, yes."

"Don't worry about him too much. He's a good kid. Smart, hardworking, great guy, but not very savvy, you know? Look at him!" He flared his arms out to present me like a carnival sideshow. "He's too dopey to think anything. Look, you wanna talk business with someone, I'm your man here. Tell you anything you need, and then some. We'll do it over breakfast, on me."

"That's kind of you, but I--"

Ernest hooked his arms around hers and pulled her away. "But nothing, I insist! I know this great little diner. Lovely waitresses. Not as lovely as you, of course."

Arlene seemed too bewildered to resist and let him snatch her up. She turned back and gave me one last look before they exited the labs. I was left by myself, tattered and crumpled next to the boots of some Sigma Security, and presented my shame and embarrassment for the curious heads that peeked into the lab. I willed what energy I had left into my legs and steadied myself up. Looking around at all the gaping eyes, I limped up the stairs did what anyone else would have done.

I went to my workstation and began to work.

Chapter 1.3

Fucking Mondays.

A hot and steaming shower, a too-generous portion of roast beef, and someone to sit on my lap who wouldn't mind being petted. That's all I wanted, the basic human comfort groups. Life could spare me those, right? Maybe I was asking too much and could settle with an empty fridge, a water main that somehow leeched from the septic line, and pictures of a pet that had passed to canine heaven over a decade ago (I'll pour one out, Maurice). Comforting? Eh, subjective. The greatest comfort I could look forward to was that instead of a crazed demon biologist from hell beating the living shitbags out of me for twenty minutes, I would have a rotund, balding, and shirtless landlord from purgatory hassling my ass until the end of eternity.

"Hey, you! Whattya doin' down there! I'm talkin' to you! Idiot. Where's my goddamned rent! Hey! I'm talking to you! You listen, you motherfucker!"

It was a comfortable trade.

The manager glared at me from the second-story balcony overlooking the apartment entrance and leaned his girth against the guardrail. The abused metal groaned against the pressure and channeled its misery through the bricks and cement that held the building together. Bits of powdered rock and rust flaked off the balcony and struck my eyes when I looked up to attention. The manager stared back with a face smeared with an aged angriness, the kind of visage you develop only after decades dealing with hundreds of miserable tenants and deadbeats. He drew back and spat to the ground, missing me by a spittle's width.

"Why ya duckin' me, Ivano?"

"I'm sorry sir, but I assure you that I'm not trying to avoid you." I never referred to him by name, last or first. No nefarious reason why; I just never remembered it.

"Oh yeah? Then how come you're tryin' to come in so fuckin' late, huh? Thinkin' I'm not gonna be up? Thinkin' I can't see in the dark or nothin'?"

"No sir, not at all. It was just my work that kept me so long." Work, testifying to administrators for a few hours, notarized paperwork, same difference.

The bars creaked when he bent harder on them. "The hell is my rent, Ivano?"

"It's the middle of the month, sir. I paid it two weeks ago."

"I know that! I'm talkin' next month's rent!"

"Next month isn't due for two weeks, sir. It's in the contract that I signed."

"Goddammit!" He shook the railing and caused it to bleed more debris onto my face. "It's never too early to pay! I don't want no fuckin' deadbeat assholes in my place. I fuckin' kill deadbeat assholes! You hear that, ya fuckin' asshole?"

"Yes sir. I'll get the money as soon as I can."

"Good!" he yelled, the cry of victory against another freeloader. "You got two weeks to get me my money, or you're outta here!"

I waited while he surveyed his domain with his hands on his hips and grunts of satisfaction. He pulled up his pants, rubbed himself for a job well done, and retreated to his lair. For all the years I lived here, I never missed rent. I'm sure he knew I never missed it either. But never mind that. The man was a professional and had the landlording profession down to a science. If you're not going to put the fear of God into the piss-paying tenants of your domain, then you have no goddamned business being in the renter's game. You know what you call a nice landlord? A broke chump. His theatrics happened about every week and worked to scare the newbies; if the threats stopped bothering you, then you lived there long enough and obviously wasn't a deadbeat. I waved goodbye to the troll as he stomped back into his cave.

"Oh, another goddamn thing!" his voice blasted through the flooring before I entered the building. "Stop the fuckin' racket in your room!"

I paused with a hand touching the doorknob. "What?" I called out.

"Your neighbors been complainin' about noise in your room all day. Either you fucking stop making noise or I make it stop. Got it?"

I stared at the door and waited for the implications to hit. The landlord's shouts were still warming the air when I bolted. I reached my room just as my lungs reminded me to breathe. My fingers went short of touching the entry pad. Where they really there? The past night and day brought too many surprises for me to believe in good tidings. I settled on a little hope to carry myself through. The room was as I left it except for the growth of a mildew-y musk crawling in the air. I stepped over the towels I left on the carpet that morning to soak up water. Nothing was on save a nightlight illuminating a corner of the kitchen. "Hello?" I called out to the darkness. "Basil? Tia? Anyone?"

I found the lights and the same living room greeted me--plain and boring. For once, the sight wasn't welcoming. I lumped myself down onto the couch, rested my arms over its backrest, and stared at the ceiling that kept me from leaping into the heavens and leaving this God-forsaken place. No house, no girlfriend, no money, and no lizards. The first three didn't nearly bother me as much as they used to. Inconsequential.

As fast as they came on, the lights gave to black and jostled me from my stupor. I felt hands covering my eyes and instinctively reached out to grab them. They were warm, smooth, and missing a few digits. A warm breath brushed across my right ear. It fluttered and clumped into words. "Peek-a... boo!"

I was never happier than to hear that voice. I pulled the scaly hands down, which incited a pouting, "Hey, no cheating!" She squirmed and moaned in complaint when I pulled her up by her thin wrists. The Isian resisted and pulled back, forcing me to pull harder. After a few struggles, I finally coaxed her up from behind the couch and plopped her down next to me. Tia looked at me with unblinking reptilian eyes, her lips a crinkled smile.

"Hi!"

"Hi," I replied, that of all the things from what I needed to say.

She nodded and nestled her back into the folds of the cushions, and then she rasped her tongue against the roof of her mouth to create a soft clicking sound. It was a sound I had learned to be an utterance of Isian content.

"So where were you all day?" I asked as she lazed next to me.

"Oh, you know, looking around and stuff."

"Just looking around? All day?"

"Yeah. Have to see around our new home, you know." She yawned. "It's tiring! So much to see and so little time to see it."

"Yeah." I paused; she snuggled deeper into the couch and closed her eyes. "You know, everyone was missing you guys at Summit today. They were kind of worried when you didn't show up."

She yawned again. "It was only a day."

"Yeah, only a day. Arlene got kind of mad at me because of it."

A thump sounded when her tail struck the wall. She sat, perked her ears up, and placed her hands on my leg to look at me, the drowsiness gone from her face. "You didn't get in trouble did you?"

The mood whiplash took me aback. "No," I blurted. "Not really. It was just a small thing. She didn't know where you guys were and asked me about it, that's all."

"Oh good. Would've made me feel bad if I got you into trouble with her." She furrowed her scaly brows. "Didn't I send a message to her? Stupid computer systems probably ate it again. I told them they should use Block-D but they never listen. Ugh, so annoying."

I nodded. She leaned over and patted my cheek, the same one Arlene struck before. The sting from the touch soon gave way to soothing warmth as she rubbed my cheeks with her palms. Unwittingly, I placed my hand over hers.

"Well we're here now and everything will better, I think," she said.

"Yeah."

Tia slipped her hand away and I rubbed at the spot, restoring the sting that had been missing. The Isian leaned back and rested her head on the couch, which exposed her neck. The black band that encircled it caught my eye. It was that velvet collar that she started wearing months ago, the one that contained the tracking beacon--or used to. I ground my palm into the cheek. That damn got me slapped around at Summit. Wrapped around in contrast against the white of the lizard's neck, the collar entranced me with its secret.

"Tia, mind if I take a look at your collar?" I asked before she could relax herself to sleep.

"Huh? Why?"

"I just want to take a look. It looks interesting."

"No it's not. It's just fuzzy cloth. All it has is my scent." She leaned her head up and cocked it slightly. "Unless that's what you want."

"Oh... it's not that." I thought of what to say. "I just want to feel it. See what it's made of, that's all."

It seemed to be enough reason for her. She shrugged, reached behind her neck, and snapped the band into a long strip held between her fingers. She opened my hand with a free claw and dropped the band into a tangle onto my palm. She sat and waited for me to examine it.

I unraveled the band and stretched it out in the air. It was as advertised: just a black velvet band. I held it up to the light and noticed how cheap it was. The light filtered through the material and highlighted a fiber pattern too uniform to be pricey, and only one side grew fuzz while the other was hardened glue. Far be it for me to judge the quality of fashion, though. I rubbed the length of the band through my thumb and index figure to find any traces of electronics or anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. It was perplexing.

Tia clicked her tongue. "Told you it was boring," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. She grasped my hand to stop my fondling and reclaimed the collar, which she wound back around her neck.

"Well, it did feel nice," I said. It didn't make sense. Either I didn't know what the hell I was looking for or Arlene was messing with my head. In all likeliness, both.

"Grass feels nice too, but I don't like sleeping on it all the time." She chuckled. "Besides, it was more interesting when it had that tracking beacon."

She whistled to herself and laid herself back on the couch, oblivious to my jawing hanging in disbelief. When it had that tracking beacon, she says. I guess this "hidden" device had a critical manufacturer's defect of not staying fucking hidden. I tried to play it dumb.

"Tracking beacon?"

"Oh yeah. Some kind of AD Ranger chip. Organic wafer, really thin and almost invisible like. It came with the collar. I found it a few days ago." She turned to me and frowned. "Can you believe that, Ly-lee? They put a beacon in my collar!"

"Really? Well, I have no idea why would they do that."

She shook her head and clicked her tongue. It was a loud, sharp snap, one of discontent rather than happiness. "Yeah they did. It's awful that they put in a tracking chip without telling me. So I took it out!"

Her voice became more agitated, and I couldn't blame her.

"Yeah, how could they?" I said.

She clapped her hands at my agreement. "I know, right Ly-lee? Basil was, 'Who cares? Why does it matter?' But I know you'd understand. An AD tracking beacon, can you believe it?"

"No I can't. It's unbelievable."

"Ugh! I got so mad!"

"You should be mad! How could they?" I was getting a little too caught up in the excitement.

"I mean, the range on that thing is horrible! They'd never track me beyond two hundred kilometers! Horrible!"

"Yeah! What kind of crappy range is two hundred--" And there, my grasp on the situation imploded on itself. It shouldn't have surprised me because that's apparently how my life is supposed to work nowadays. Out of words, I sat boggled while she spent the next several minutes deriding the "cheap" and "horrible" quality of the Applied Dynamics tracking device, and I nodded in confused agreement to every other sentence.

"... and that's why I took it out, stupid thing," she concluded, tapping her collared throat for emphasis. "I'm going to use a Kanid Technologies IMD-86A module I ordered. It has over ten times the local range, and the entire world with satellites!"

"That's great, Tia," I could only say. Sigh. Just when I thought I knew how a giant lizard thinks. "So where did you put the old one?"

"Eh? The old one? It's probably in my bag still."

"Mind if I borrow it?"

I might as well offer the module as proof to curtail the Arlene beat-train. That is, assuming she believed that I wasn't the one that took apart to begin with--a good possibility. It's a wonderful equality with my relationships with women: I didn't understand them despite the species barrier. Give me credit though, at least I was consistent.

"Oh no, you can't borrow it, not at all," she said.

"I can't? Not even for a little bit? Why not?"

She chuckled and shook her hand. "Because you're my friend! You can just have it."

Behind the couch, she rustled through her bag with her rear upended on the backrest. Chirping her success, she pulled back up and brought her hands to my eyes to show a transparent wafer pinched between her fingers. I could only make it out by the outlines of light glazing off it. "There it is!" she said. Like the collar before, she opened my hand with the other claw and placed the device in the middle of my palm. She took my hands, enclosed my fingers over the module, and then patted my fist tight.

"All yours!" she said.

"Thanks."

I slipped the chip in my breast pocket, stood up, and stretched. It was late.

"I think it's time for sleep," I said.

"Ah yes. Sleep is good. We should sleep." She stretched across the coach to take advantage of the now vacant spot and reached for the console on the table. The computer turned on and resumed some drama I had queued last time I watched. "Busy day tomorrow!"

"Yeah, busy. 'Night, Tia."

"G'night!"

I didn't bother turning on the lights in my bedroom to engage in nightly pre-sleep rituals. I found the bed and slumped belly-down onto the mattress. The creaky springs protested against my bulk. I reached over to the nightstand and pulled out the bottle from the drawer. A ball of spit was all I needed to inject the pair of pills down my throat. Face-down in the pillow with my clothes clinging to my sticky body, it didn't take long for the pleasures of the night to take away my pains and worries for another day.

2. As human as herpetologically possible.

Chapter 2.1

Day one living with lizards. Technically day two, but the last one didn't count considering I didn't see them the entire day. So we're starting fresh at day one, a wonderful and glorious Tuesday. It started out just swell.

Try as it might, the bedroom door couldn't bar out sound, clanging pots, pans, or whatever other implements I had, and the commotion woke me up. It surely came from the kitchen, which meant it was time for breakfast. Food in the morning nauseated me, but the pillow had stopped working its magic of blocking the ruckus from my ears. I tumbled out of bed and into the bathroom with eyes half-closed and mind all-closed, shedding my soiled clothes along the way.

Here I went, the same damned human morning ceremony that I was a master of for the past 9,356 (±83 or so) days of my life. It should be easy: scrub my teeth of the gunk caked on the enamel, gargle a double-shot of flavored isopropyl to kill the clammy residue left behind, trim down, take a piss, and shower up. To make myself look like a human-fucking-being. I had just spat the burning into the sink when something rustled from the bathtub. I hung in mid-spit and waited for the inevitability. Even in the sanctum of the bathroom, I couldn't get a break.

Jagged-eyed, the Isian stretched his hands out from the tub and searched for something to grip on. The claws found the edge of the tub and dug in. After he placed both feet onto the lip and pulled himself out, he teetered a bit before he found his balance and planted his rump on the rim. He scratched himself, yawned, and then shook his eyes open to notice me. He chirped and smiled.

"Morning!"

I let the rest of the mouthwash drool out my mouth. "Morning Basil," I replied with juices dripping off my lips and chin.

Basil chittered and nodded.

Conscious that I now had an audience, I opened the cupboard and took out the shaver. I started to groom, appreciating the electrical hum and hand-numbing vibrations. As if competing against the shrieks of the shaver, I heard a gentler hum from the bathtub. I glanced over and Basil was staring at the ceiling and humming to himself. He shook his head side-to-side and swished his tail in the tub as he meshed his melody with the shaver's. I didn't know if he had a particular song or if it was random humming like you do when showering.

What an odd world, shaving in your underwear while a lizard serenaded you from the bathtub. The drone mixing with Basil's throaty tune would have been an interesting tune if I sought to appreciate it, except I just woke up, I was cranky, and I was trying to make myself presentable. Thus, the noise was starting to annoy me.

The shaver burned my palms; the inductive power supply was spazzing out from being on too long. I threw the shaver back in the cupboard, rinsed, and toweled off. Basil was still humming, unfazed by the lack of an accompaniment. I waited, expecting him to finish, but he instead found a new intensity in the song and tapped his feet to its rhythm on the tub. I was three-for-five in the morning rituals, and I couldn't do the last couple until he got out.

"Hey, Basil? Basil!"

He seized up and yelped like something just bit him. He shook his head and clicked his tongue when he figured it was just me. "Oh, Ly-lee. Yeah?"

"I need to take a shower."

"Okay? Go ahead?"

"Well, I have to use the bathroom. You know? The bathtub?"

He blinked. A frown came to his face, and he tapped on his head in thought. The meaning of my words struck him with an "oh!" and he lifted his tail from the bowl and wrapped it out the tub. I waited for him to get out of the bathroom, but he just smiled at me, still perched on the edge but with his tail now resting on the bathroom tiles. "Sorry Ly-lee. Here you go," he said.

I dipped my face into my hands when he started humming again. It was time for another approach. "Hey, I heard your sister out in the kitchen. I think she might be eating all the food."

I never saw anything jump so fast out of a room before. I locked the door, pulling on it a few times to ensure its integrity, and stepped into the tub to take care of steps four and five.

Day-freaking-one.

---

The racket from the kitchen had calmed. I averted my eyes away from the room itself and focused on the ancillaries: the stove, the ceiling light, the refrigerator, and the lizard lapping from a bowl filled with... something. She licked the stuff off her lips when she saw me.

"Good morning, Ly-lee!"

"Morning."

"Breakfast time is the best time."

"Sometimes. What are you eating, exactly?"

She nosed into the bowl and sniffed its contents. "Something I mixed up. I couldn't find anything else."

Basil came next to her and eyed the bowl with coveting fascination. He reached over and said, "I want some," but retreated when his sister batted his hand away and snarled.

"Tia, you know the reason you couldn't find anything to eat?" I asked.

"Huh?"

"It's because you ate all the food. All of it."

"Well, I was hungry."

"Yes. So hungry that you ate everything. Now I can't eat breakfast because there's no food left."

She blinked at me, and then the revelation seemed to hit her. She looked away and stirred the goop with one of her fingers. Basil took advantage of the situation.

"Yeah, see? I told you! I told her Ly-lee, but she wouldn't listen. And now look what happened."

The guilt trip worked too well against the poor girl. She held up the bowl and offered it to me but kept away eye contact.

"Sorry," she said, her voice indirect. "You can have this. I don't want it anymore."

"I don't want your breakfast. Look, since we're all living together we have to work together, okay? Otherwise, everybody is just going to be at each other's throats all day and we can't live like that."

"I don't want you to be mad at me."

"I'm not. We just have to have some rules, that's all. Rules that we follow."

"Yeah, rules," Basil said, patting on my back. "Rules like, not eating everything and leaving us nothing."

I turned to him. "That goes the same for you too."

"Oh." He slunk down. "Yeah."

I looked at my handiwork--impressive. It was quiet and peaceful. Basil hovered near my feet while Tia stared at the wall after setting the bowl on the table. A shiver. There I was something about docile Isians that disturbed me. Something wrong and unnatural. I tilted Tia's chin up and coaxed her to smile with one of my own.

"All right, enough sad faces, guys. Let's get our scaly butts to work."

I opened the door, stepped out, and waved for them to follow. While I locked the door, I heard one of them mumble, "I told you so."

I didn't take any chances and took the scenic route to the station. The last thing I needed were gawks from strangers or having to explain myself to overzealous cops enforcing leash laws. We zigzagged through alleyways, off roads, and other lonely capillaries of the neighborhood. Away from the bustle and curious gaze of the public at large, only the sounds of territorial mutts and nervous pigeons disturbed our trek.

"This isn't the way to Summit," one lizard complained. "It's the other way."

"We're taking the train," I said. Their eyes bloomed in bewilderment at the lunacy of the plan.

We reached the station just as the train was prepping to leave--the out-of-the-way itinerary swallowed up the time. The throngs of Summitites had arranged themselves in lines and were waiting for SX14 to open her doors. We hurried up the steps to the platform and the entrance gates. I pulled out my Tetra identification card and a realization struck me.

"You guys didn't happen to bring your ID badges, did you?" I asked.

"What badges?"

Oh boy. I approached the interface screen that carried Tetra's logo soaked in a friendly shade of blue and held up my card for processing. White text scrolled at the bottom: "Tetra N-Freight identification received. Please verify your identity." I pressed my hand against the screen and it affirmed with a bright green.

"Thank you, Mr. Ivano. Please be reminded that accommodations for your service animals are available in the last two cars. Have a pleasant day!"

The gate opened and allowed us to enter.

"Huh, just like that?" Tia said, looking back as the gate closed behind us. She nudged her brother. "We should have taken the train last time."

We waited in line at the far end of the train and incited some curious stares from other would-be passengers. Being employees of Summit, most were already aware of the Isians, but the sight of them waiting patiently to board a train was probably something new. It was about a minute later when the train doors opened and allowed us into the cars.

Life had mercy on me for the day and the ride to Summit was uneventful. The twins spent most of the time occupying themselves with the window view, pressing their claws and nose against the polycarbonate with the wide-eyed fascination of puppies. The riders in the car did the same toward the lizards. One guy stared at them for the longest while before he noticed me next to them. He pointed them and mimed a silent, "Yours?" I shrugged and nodded. He shook his head and mouthed, "Wow."

When we got out of the train and into Summit, the Isians whistled and bolted into the courtyard to the old maple. I let them. I figured that since I got them safely to Summit, my obligations to them were finished. At least for the next few hours, they were Tetra's problem. I passed by and waved to the twins in their new day's productivity of abusing their wooden friend.

I lingered near the entrance of the Spire to listen to the announcements from the PA system. Her milky voice helped to smooth out my mood despite the dreck she parroted. So I was beat up to hell and embarrassed beyond human tolerance yesterday. At least now, I found the lizards and got them back to Summit. It was as good of a day as I could make it. Gotta keep living, gotta keep working, and gotta keep making money. C'est la vie, the French say. You regard that language because it's the champion of making bullshit sound philosophical.

Aimee knew a dozen languages, including French, so I thought she'd be the best person to reassure me. I was about to make the traditional annoyances with her when I froze at the sight of her desk. I hadn't noticed who she was conversing with when I neared her station--it was the last person in the world I wanted to see. I realized my mistake too late, and Aimee's inhuman sight snared me before I could back away. She ignored my frantic waving and pointed me out to her companion. That person faced me. I steeled myself.

"Lyle," Arlene called out, "come over here."

I didn't want to do shit for her. I wanted to say, "No my dear. Kiss my ass," like those manly main characters in movies do. You know, the kind that had more pants than shirts and whose awesome chest could be declared a national park from the amount foliage and wildlife that thrived on it. I wanted to tell her to fuck off and stomp away like a righteous asshole. I wanted to be a righteous asshole. God would've wanted me to be a righteous asshole. But no, he didn't give Lyle the tools to be one. So I just stood, being an indecisive asshole instead.

She got the hint and came toward me. I hunched to myself. Before she can reach striking distance, a shrill echoed through the lobby and stopped her dead. Two forms raced by, their white figures but a ghost flying through the lobby.

"Hi Arlene!" one of them called out.

"Bye Arlene!" the other finished.

In a futile display to stop the twins, Arlene held out an arm after them and shouted, "Basil! Tia! Wait!" but her voice couldn't keep up with Isian speed. Only the echoes of claws clacking on the floor lingered to understand her words. She cursed something under her breath and turned back to me. I shrugged.

"I thought I'd bring them today," I said.

"So I see."

She gazed to the distance past me. Gone were the heavy red scowls and menacing glares. The pins and needles of her features had dulled since yesterday into harmlessness. Her expression defeated any attempt to read it, but the shallow bags underneath her eyes betrayed the image of a fiery woman. This Arlene was almost new to me. Aimee encouraged me to her with a flick of the head. Hesitantly, I went next to her.

"I guess that means we wouldn't be needing those soldiers today, yeah?" I said.

She shook her head and stuttered her words. "Oh. Oh, oh no. We won't."

Her gaze drifted again, and she brushed her hair aside--an aimless gesture one does when she has to face that one guy the morning after a drunken office party. Flustered, she seemed like she had an idea floating in her mind but didn't know how to express it with her mouth. This kind of Arlene sort of unnerved me, maybe even more than when she was furious.

"Lyle," she began, pausing to take a breath. "About yesterday. I... well, I want to apologize."

"Don't worry about it. It's all right." I internally smacked myself. What the hell are you doing, you idiot?

"No, no, no. It's not all right. It's not all right at all." She sliced her hand through the air to emphasize the assertion. "It was completely uncalled for. I was, well, a total bitch yesterday, and you didn't deserve to be treated like that. I got so worked up that morning when I found out they were missing, and I just went ballistic. And when Tetra gave me control of one some of their guards just to shut me up, I guess I just took it out on the easiest target I could."

Easiest target? Ouch.

She continued. "It was wrong for me to do that, completely and utterly wrong, and I want to apologize. I completely understand if you don't accept it. I mean, I haven't really forgiven myself for what I did. But..." She trailed off. She clutched her hands together and waited for me to speak.

Righteous asshole Lyle would have brushed her off. Take your apology and shove it, you stupid bitch, it said. Come back later when you stop being an ugly cow. The goddamn lizards look better than your whore ass. Now was an appropriate time as any to pull out the hatred... but I didn't. Enough pain and drama plagued the world as it was, and it didn't need any more. How quixotic of me, the French would say.

"Don't worry about it," I said.

Arlene curled her lips into a semblance of a smile. She folded her arms and straightened her posture. "You're really amazing, Lyle. This is the second time I did something like this to you, and all you can say is, 'It's all right.' I wouldn't have forgiven even my mother. Is there anything in the world you don't get along with?"

"Cats mostly. There was also this one time when a seagull crapped on my head, but I was probably being a jerk anyway."

She laughed, finally climbing herself back to a normal Arlene. She seemed relieved, and I was too.

"You know, I'm starting to see why the Isians like you so much." She placed her hand on my shoulder. It was a friendly gesture, not the death-grip that she brandished yesterday. "Look, Lyle. I want to make it up to you. How about lunch? You and me."

"Lunch?" I haven't heard that in a long time.

"Yes. There's an Italian place that just opened downtown. I heard that it's exquisite. My treat."

Italian food didn't agree with me too well. But on the other hand, I couldn't object to fine food. Especially those with an attractive woman. Especially those paid for by said attractive woman. I didn't get to do that often. Still, I had reservations about spending more time with her. A slapped-red cheek would do that. But I relented.

"Okay, yeah. Sounds good."

Arlene playfully shook my shoulders. "Good! Then it's a date." She pulled out and unfolded a tablet from her pocket to scrawl some notes. "I'll pick you up at noon."

"Today?"

"Yeah. Oh shoot, no. I have a meeting today. Let's see..." She flicked the screen and sorted through a pattern of lists and dates that alienated me (being a person that hadn't been acquainted with a calendar in over two years). She bit her lip and shook her head. "Well, damn."

"Problem?"

"Mind if you take a rain check, instead?"

"I don't mind."

"Thanks. We'll discuss some things there when we get around to it. Meanwhile, I got this damned appointment to get to. I don't know how I'm going to explain this whole thing to them."

Aimee interrupted with a waving stack of paper documents and said, "Here are the reports you had requested, Ms. Neuman."

I flicked my eyes away at the hand-off. Hard copies shuttering in the air carried a menacing authority, and the less I knew the better.

"Thanks Aimee," Arlene said, putting the stack into her bag. She offered a hand to me. "Well, Lyle, I got a bunch of work to do, and I guess you do too."

I shook her hand. "Not really, we just play games," I said. "Say, you wouldn't mind trying to talk some sense to the Isians, would you? About this whole 'being roommates' thing."

"I think you and I both all know how that conversation would to end. It'll be useless. Don't worry though, I'm working to take care of everything. Just try to take care of them in the meantime, yeah?"

"I'll try."

She tugged the bag's strap over her shoulder and swung it behind her. "You'll do fine, Lyle, I'm sure of it. See you later."

"Yeah, you too. Woah, wait!" I stopped her before she could leave. I fished through my pockets for the tracking module and held it up to the light for her to see. "I think this belongs to you guys. I guess it didn't perform to Isian specifications."

I gave the chip to her and incited a groan when she realized what it was. "Should've gone with the subdermal solution on both of them," I heard her mumble. She thanked me, took the device, and left. I wandered back to Aimee.

"Well, see?" she said. "That was quite pleasant, was it not? You could do much worse than lunch with her."

Like a senile grandmother driving down a crowded interstate, the belated realization that I had scheduled a fucking date with Arlene crashed into me. "Did I just agree to have lunch with someone that sicced fucking blacksuits at me yesterday? Why did I do that? Tell me I'm not out of my mind?"

"It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend, Mr. Ivano."

"I guess?" What a silly thing to say from a robot. What does she know about forgiveness? "So an offer of lunch makes up for beating and embarrassment, and I should just forget it? Is that what you're suggesting?"

"Think of it this way, Mr. Ivano: Ms. Neuman's actions with Sigma Security, as drastic as they were, would have been a pittance compared to Tetra's had you not shown up as you did. When you arrived, the company was already in progress of petitioning the state governance to seek a bounty on you."

"You're fucking kidding me?"

"Surely I am not. The force was to comprise of three squads of Sigma Security, two Bulldog sentries, and that little prototype over there."

She pointed across to the seldom-traveled far end of the lobby, a corner where the light bent around to create a shadowed bubble. I straightened my glasses and squinted to make out the vague shape of a car-sized biped, its military form defined by austere lines. It slunk in its little corner and hid. I couldn't make out much else besides that outline.

Aimee continued: "That is Primary Sigma's latest prototype, an urban light assault platform with reactive camouflage. The plan was to use the opportunity for a live-fire field test. It is a fiery little thing, I am led to understand."

I groaned. "So, you're saying I should be grateful?"

"Grateful that Ms. Neuman got to you first, yes. Because of her and Mr. Lefko's insistences, the company agreed to stay the bounty so that you may prove you had the care of the Isians. Let us not forget that her initial outrage stemmed from a deep and personal compassion for them. I would not wager that our benefactors at Tetra Chromatics Corporation have the same motivation, would you agree? She is trying to make amends for her mistakes, Mr. Ivano. Please do not be offended by it."

"Yeah." I took a moment to think over her words and sighed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Lunch with Arlene wouldn't be too bad."

She patted her palm over one of my hands and shook it. "Splendid! An outing with her is just what you need to mend old wounds. Besides, you need to get out and explore the world some, Mr. Ivano. Some good air and good food would do you a wonderment of good."

"I guess so. I'm just glad this whole ordeal is over," I said, scratching my head over her enthusiasm. I took another peek over at the military bot. "Why is that thing still there anyway? To intimidate me?"

"Ah no. Not only is she fiery, but she is quite temperamental. She refuses to move since yesterday, and Sigma has not gotten around moving her out yet. I gather the project still needs some time to mature yet."

Classic Tetra engineering at its finest.

---

After a day and a morning's worth of fasting, even the gruel they pass off as "food" in the employee cafeteria sounded appetizing. I was never gladder to get out my station and muzzle up my barking stomach. Tia and Basil, their appetites calibrated to Summit's working schedules, were a step ahead and had sprung out the labs before I could even lock down my terminal. I was standing in line and waiting for a slab of the "Monday Meatloaf" (not made from genuine Mondays) when a tug pulled against my pants leg. It's the sort of tug you'd expect an attention-starved pet to make if it had opposable thumbs. The twins looked up to me with curiously empty maws. Basil spoke first.

"Hey Ly-lee, can we borrow your badge?"

"My Tetra ID? Why?"

"We need to use the train."

"It's the middle of the day, where could you possibly want to go to?"

Tia piped up. "We're going back home. I have to do something."

"And I have to go too," Basil said. His lips crinkled down into a slight frown. "She said I have to even though I want stay here."

Oh God no. I couldn't let them roam through the dangerous city ecosystem in the middle of the day, let alone deal with the animals at my apartment. "No guys, I can't let you do that."

"Come on, Ly-lee, please? It's important!" Tia pleaded. She stood up and placed her hands on my chest, which caused me to drop my tray from surprise and splatter Monday Meatpies on the floor. She grasped my hand, sandwiched it between hers, and rubbed it warm. Afterwards, she rolled my fingers into a ball and cupped her claws over them.

"I just don't think it's a great idea," I said, leaning backwards against the counter as she pressed against me.

"I promise we'll be good. Please, Ly-lee? Just this once."

Basil stood upright and repeated her.

Conscious of the stares I was receiving from holding up the line, I didn't have the heart to rebuke them. I sighed. I was such a goddamned softie.

"All right, fine. Just as long as you guys--"

No sooner had I voiced approval, Basil snapped into my back pocket and pulled out my wallet. I yapped in surprise, but Tia prevented me from stopping the thievery by keeping her hands tied around mine. Basil flipped open the wallet, plucked the ID from it, snapped it shut, and had the entire thing back in my pocket before I could utter another syllable. Tia then unwrapped my hands and, to my horror, pulled what looked like my skin off my palms and fingers. She flapped the membrane in the air to inspect it and chirped in approval. I shook my hand and examined it--graciously, my palm was still there.

Basil examined the card. "Oh this will be easy to dupe." He ran out the cafeteria called out behind him, "Thanks Ly-lee!"

"Thank you," Tia said. "We'll give the ID to Aimee when we're done." She gave my nose a lick and left me with an empty tray stained with streaks of Monday.

I cleaned up the mess and realized I didn't want meatloaf.

After lunch, I sat on the rim of the lobby's fountain and burned the rest of the hour burping the remnants of the Wednesday Wieners. They were surprisingly edible. The meat had a rough and stringy texture wrapped around volatile pockets of fat, the kind that exploded in your mouth when you bit into it. Juiciness goes a long way to make food tolerable. My fellow engineers, after finishing their hard work exercising their jaws, filtered into the lobby with me. The Primary guys coalesced together like globules of oil in water and sipped lattes or other drinks with foreign names. Meanwhile, the bulk of Secondary blasted from the cafeteria epicenter and didn't bother reassembling themselves. My colleagues sat with themselves with their arms crossed and dignified. Some read the morning's news on their comms, while the slicker ones hoarded benches and used company time to do "creative mental expansion" with their arms folded over their eyes

Something didn't play along with the crowd, however. It was an alien, some outsider ruffling the established fabric of the lobby culture. I felt it tingling my sixth sense--that sense of embarrassment--and it broke my reverie. I excused my turning head by pretending to crick my neck, and I saw him staring at me from the other side of the fountain. No one could be so intent on me, I figured, so I shifted along to rim to give him an un-obscured view. His gaze followed through the dancing water all the way to the ends of the fountain, his head pivoting like an owl with round eyes. The pretense of subtlety died, and I stared back at him. The man didn't seem to notice. Confused and not caring to feel like a zoo exhibit, I stood up and called out to him.

"Hello? Can I help you?"

The man tensed up as if surprised that I noticed him. He reached for the base of his tie, tightened it, and started brushing off unseen debris from his white sleeves. He didn't reply.

I guess I could have ignored him and let the creepy man ogle my sexy body all he wanted. Whatever, I didn't need to care. But Lyle's Personality Quirk #304: He cares too much, which got him into more trouble than he needed, especially in the last few days. I walked around the fountain to him and noticed he wasn't anyone I've seen before in my routine around Summit. When I neared, his eyes widened and he stopped his brushing in mid-stroke.

"Is there anything I can help you with, sir?" I asked again.

The man trembled. He combed his tie repeatedly, from the top to the bottom and back again. His teeth rattled together like an uneven pot on a stove. His breath cut short, and he tugged at his tie until his collar tussled out. Drops of sweat clung on his forehead and begged gravity to release them. The edge of his lips unfurled upwards with twitching edges and formed a facsimile of a grin. The voice that came out from it rode on excited wheezes.

"You're, ah... you're Lyle. Lyle Ivano, yeah? Aha--Lyle! Lyle, right? Lyle!"

"Yeah, that's me," I said, which incited a squeal from him. I stepped back in surprise.

The man swabbed his forehead with his tie and bleated neurotic chuckles. What should have been an expression of relief instead sounded like a hyena on amphetamines. I looked around me as the man continued his crazed laugh--people were edging away from the scene. It would have suited me just fine to accompany them.

He eventually calmed and dulled his voice back to equilibrium, but still sounding ragged and excited. "Oh God, I'm so sorry, Mr. Ivano. It's just that, wow! You know. Meeting you and all. I've just heard stories and... wow! To meet you!"

Who in the hell would be excited to meet me?

"Mister, I don't think I'm the person you think I am."

"Sure you are! You're the guy that tamed those lizards, right? Those Isians?"

"Yeah, but I didn't tame anything. They're just as wild as ever."

"Ahaha! You're on the modest end, a noble trait. I heard what you did that night when they barged into Secondary. You broke them down and showed them the stuff, didn't you? That's taming the wild beasts!"

"It's nothing like that, I assure you."

He groaned out a chuckle and shook his head. "Don't worry, I've heard all the tales. I know the truth. We owe it all to you, good sir. Aha! It's good to have a whip in the den of lions!"

There were worse things to be envied for, I guess. Hell, I could just be glad to be envied by anybody. But a hero? This man was drunk off the distilled excitement he had been imbibing, and it warped his sense of what I was. Perhaps this was a message from a higher power to remind me of the dangers of drugs. I couldn't be sure.

"I think you should ask for a refund from the fool you got your truth from, Mr--" I hesitated when I realized I didn't know what to call him.

"Ah, my manners! I haven't even introduced myself!" He wiped his right hand on a thigh of his pants and held it out. "Sophos Andrews from Primary Sigma. An honor to meet a great person such as yourself, Mr. Ivano!"

"Just Lyle, please," I said. After we shook, I brought my hand behind me to wipe off the sweat that latched to my palm. Sigma? He was far out from his natural habitat. I guess that explained the craziness.

"Ah, 'just Lyle,' he says! Ahaha!" He thumped his fist against his chest to contain his laughter. "No, I shall not demean you like that!"

This level of reverence was just too much for me. Joking ego inflation like Mark does is one thing--I could at least play along. This man seemed dead serious. A pair of eyes stared at me and quivered in worship like they had laid witness to the Messiah. God, was it uncomfortable.

"Okay," I said. "I'm not sure what you heard about me or what you think I did, but I'm no hero or whatever, okay? I'm just some random idiot that works here and got caught in the crossfire. It just happened. Nothing special."

"They're living with you aren't they?"

"Well, yeah."

"Ah! You see! Living in the den of the beasts! First, you battled the beasts in Secondary and then you drag them to your abode, shuttling them down in the deep dungeons where they can no longer do any harm. What sort of non-heroism is that?"

"Look, they just showed up in my house in the middle night, okay? I had nothing to do with it. And the rent for my apartment doesn't come with a dungeon."

"Baiting the beasts, classic!"

Forget it, there was no reasoning with the man. I could only pluck away at so much self-delusion without a psychiatry degree. At least for now, I let him have his little fantasy. I just wanted to cut this odd conversation short before I could provide him any more fodder for Lyle's mythic heroics.

"I guess you're right," I said. "Look, I gotta go back to the labs. Those sprockets need to be verified, you know?"

"Oh, oh. Of course! Please, don't let me keep you here any further. Work needs to be done! You humoring me today was more than enough. Please, go." He gestured me to go back to the labs.

"Yeah. See you later, Sophos."

When walking to the labs, I turned back to him every few steps and saw him continuing to wave to me. He kept it up until I was inside the laboratory hallway. Thinking back, I can't say that having an admirer didn't tickle me, but I surely would've preferred someone a bit more in there. Then again, he was a character from Primary Sigma--I couldn't expect less from a department that hired lizards as engineers.

---

The twins didn't come back to Summit. True to their word, they had given my ID to Aimee, which I collected before I left. I wanted to do some groceries before heading home and replenish the food supply the twins had drained in Olympic-class fashion, but I thought it better to haul back to the apartment. Leaving the Isians to their vices home alone was one thing, but then I realized I haven't the slightest idea what they actually meant by "we have to do something." They could be throwing a house party for all lizards around the neighborhood for all I knew. Yeah, so I was an idiot. This "parenting sapient reptiles" stuff was new to me.

I was worried they never made it back home and instead got lost in the maze of the city's mass transit system. It wasn't about them getting lost, per se, but that they'll become bored. Imagine the mess they'd make: harassing hapless passengers, tearing apart control panels on the trains to see how they worked, causing a horrific train-crashing accident, or maybe liking it all so much they wouldn't want to come home. Bad worries.

Muffled gunfire, sword clanging, and meaty grunting sounded through my apartment door, which came as a relief for me. Inside, the male half of the reptilian pair crunched away on a snack on the couch and was watching an installment of the Adventures of the Iron Maiden. I sat next to him just as the best part of the show came and the heroine began her transformation. Her frail human body flashed into blinding light before the eponymous Maiden, a toned creature wrapped by a golden metal corset, strutted out with stockwhip in hand and a Latin chorus singing her praises from the heavens.

"Good show, huh?" I said.

Unable to speak while tending the crunches rumbling in his maw, he nodded.

"So what did you guys do all day? And where's Tia?"

He wolfed down his mouthful and squealed. "We were out getting food all day. See!"

From the floor, he brought up a knapsack and jiggled it for me. The funk of aged wet rags seeped from the bag and washed a bad premonition over me. I inched my butt away, not wanting to see what was inside but unwilling to say it. It was the wrong time to be polite. When he opened the bag and presented its contents, I had to hold in my stomach with my hands over my mouth.

Rats. Tons and tons of fucking rats.

To torment me further, he plucked out a rat by its tail and gulped it whole and headfirst into his snout. My guts tried to puke itself out again when I heard the hollow crushing of the rodent's bones. He slurped in the rat's scaly tail and smiled at me.

"We have a whole bunch!" he proclaimed, jiggling the bag.

I was about to say something, but a sudden spasm in my chest forced my mouth closed. Meanwhile, the villainous Dark Reaver, the Iron Maiden's greatest and most powerful enemy, lassoed the heroine in his Dark Recombinator. The Maiden struggled against the grasp of his dark tendrils and groaned in a way that could be confused with pleasure to unsophisticated ears.

I swallowed my guts in and tried again. "Basil, where did you--"

"Oh, wait a moment Ly-lee, I have something good for you too!"

He dropped the bag on the floor and skipped to the kitchen. A dead rat spilled and nestled next to my foot. I kicked the goddamn thing away in reflex. Basil came back a short moment later carrying a large plate.

"Here, it's special and just for you," he said and placed the plate on my lap.

My stomach churned and I almost swallowed my tongue. A pinwheel of bloodied mice lay on the plate with their tails wrapped around the rim and their noses pointed toward a gigantic rat in the center. Its hunched form still and lifeless, the black beast gaped at me and dared me to consume it. A top-rate effort in rodent preparation aesthetics? This was the reason why I was an engineer and not a snooty food critic. I gripped the cushions of the couch and tried not to retch.

Basil encouraged me by placing my hand on the plate and saying, "Go on, try one. It's good!"

I drank back the little bit of vomit that crawled up my throat. The rat was staring at me, its eyes open and face snarled in mid-scream. Even in death, the thing was growling and defiant. It compelled me to seek Basil, who gave no solace and grinned as proud as a dog presenting its owner with a dead squirrel. I gulped, forced myself to smile, and patted his head while scrambling to think of an excuse. God, am I going to do it? It can't be that bad, right? I closed my eyes and reached for the rodent.

Hiss!

I screamed and the plate fell off my lap, scattering dead mice over the floor. The fucking rat bastard wasn't dead! Wild-eyed, the vermin screamed back at me. It ran screeching around the living room, confused and hissing at everything.

"Oh!" Basil yelped. He grabbed the shrieking rat and silenced it by crushing its neck with a curt snap with his claw. The crunch of breaking bones boiled over my stomach acids, and I felt like it was going to burn a hole in my gut. Basil picked up the plate and placed the rat, its neck bent unnaturally from its body, back on it. "Sorry, I guess I didn't kill it good enough."

I waved the plate away before he can put it back on my lap. "I don't want it. You can have it."

"Oh, okay. I'll just save it for you when you do."

He tossed the rat into the sack and then began clearing the mice from the floor. He disposed their bodies in his mouth until his cheeks swelled. After he appropriated the dozen or so mice into his jaws, he climbed back on the couch and started chewing the mass.

"So, ah, where's your sister?" I asked him again after some sensibility.

"Out hunting still," he said in-between crunches.

"You're letting her do all the work?"

"No, no, I helped her. She said she didn't need my help anymore and told me to come back." He plucked another rodent from the sack. "Girls are better hunters anyway. They get real mean and stuff."

"Yeah."

The Iron Maiden, after breaking apart hundreds of the Dark Reaver's henchmen, was pummeling the evil out of the great overlord himself. She spared no mercy terrorizing her greatest foe and whipped apart his will to live one lash at a time. By this stage, she wore even less than when she started. Such a wonderful show.

"How do you like it here so far?" I asked.

"Oh, it's good. I think. I mean, it's not as big as Summit or anything. And it doesn't have any trees. And it doesn't have a big cafeteria or anything. And it's kind of small, I guess. Not a lot of room to run around. Kind of cramped actually. And there's not a lot of people to play with. And it's kind of dark in here." He sneezed and spewed out nasal debris and bits of rat into to the air. "And the air is kind of weird too and smells funny."

"So besides that?"

"Besides that, I like it!"

Basil's ears snapped to attention when something knocked on the window leading to the fire escape. "Oh, and there she is now!" he said and ran to open the pane. Another Isian head popped in and licked his forehead, and he made room for the newcomer to hop inside with a bulging sack strung over her back.

"Hey, Ly-lee!" Tia greeted when she saw me.

I waved hello.

The bag met the floor in a fleshy thump, and Tia dragged it behind her and came to sit next to me. I didn't have to question what the bag held. The stench from the horde of vermin overpowered my nostrils and forced my mouth to take breathing duties. She plunged her head into the bag and fished inside. "Hey little brother, look what I have here," she said and pulled out, by the tail, a bloated specimen.

Her brother examined the rat and clicked his tongue. "That's not the biggest, is it?"

"No, but it's special," she poked the rodent's bloated belly, "because I think it has babies inside."

Basil reached out for it. "Oh, I want to see!"

Before he could touch the rat, Tia stuffed it in her mouth and chewed it whole. Her eyes beaded in a gourmand concentration, she crunched and swished the bits in her mouth and buried them in pockets in her cheeks. "Definitely full of babies," she said with her mouth still swollen with rat bits.

I clutched my stomach and groaned.

"You always get the good ones!" Basil pouted.

Tia paid no mind to him and concentrated on swallowing the remains. A burp later, she hoisted the bag up and fumbled inside again. "I have something for you, Ly-lee. I found it trying to hunt the rats. I think you'll like it!"

"That's okay. I don't think I want--" My hands snuffed out the rest of the sentence when she pulled out the surprise.

A goddamn fucking cat.

Little greasy bits of the Wednesday Wieners floated in the toilet water--yellow, green, and other cheerful colors dancing in the clear pool. They didn't taste nearly as good as they did that afternoon.

Chapter 2.2

At this point, the twins had been at Summit for about half a year. That's six or so straight months of consistent human contact, and that's just at Tetra. Arlene mentioned that they were fifteen years old, and I would think they'd spent a good lot of that time around the company of humans. They had many opportunities to commit to human culture and mannerisms--to know what you should and should not do in the civilized world. They weren't stupid, they could learn this. Even a dog could, and mutts enjoy eating their own poop.

In preparing the twins for the world, Wyvern was more interested in teaching them calculus and fluid dynamics than how to be a decent human being over an ill-cultured animal. Considering Wyvern's legion of zoologists, behaviorists, psychologists, ethicists, anthropologists, and other unpronounceable -ists, it couldn't have been an oversight. Maybe they examined the world and concluded such training to be redundant.

Although I loathe questioning the methods of professionals far smarter than me, my sanity wouldn't let me sleep until I ground at least a bit of civility into the Isians, even if I had to crush it and blow it through their nostrils one speck at a time. The hunting thing was the first to go. When man stopped brutalizing wild things because he was hungry and instead did so because it was damned fun, that's when he inherited the earth. I had standards, and I couldn't stomach the kind of rabid, flea-ridden vermin they would've filled their appetites with. Their protests boggled me.

"Why can't we hunt rats anymore? They're pretty good to eat, aren't they?"

"There's still a bunch more, though. It's not like we ate them all and made them extinct."

"We killed them fast, just like we were taught to. Well except that one time when I ran out of venom, but that was only once, honest!"

"Why not cats? They're good to eat and tasty too. What's the difference?"

"No, I don't think Ly-lee would let us hunt dogs either."

It took half an hour, and we compromised by allowing them to finish off their sacks of kill (although I insisted they throw the cat away). The bills afterwards from the butcher almost made me regret the moratorium. Almost.

A related issue: I didn't know the number of people in my neighborhood that had caught glimpses of them, but between their couple trips to my place and their hunting spree, I could guess it was too many. I sought to minimize the sightings, no small feat considering their temperaments. Their arguments were the same: "But we're already around a bunch of humans all the time at Summit." True, and I struggled to think of a reply. It made sense: maybe hundreds of people at Summit already knew about their existence, to say less of their friends and families. Isian lizards weren't any sort of secret. All I needed was the media to pitch up a tent outside and bring in the clowns and trapeze artists.

Then again, who would care? Maybe that's why Tetra allowed them let them go scott-free with a random fool from Secondary. Around this neighborhood, hysterics involving reptilian creatures stalking the night's felines would be an ordinary Tuesday evening on acid. If Tetra really wanted them back of Summit, you better believe it would drag them back, kicking, screaming, or otherwise. The idea that the company believed Tia and Basil to be individuals with the freedom to live as they desire dipped into my mind, but it was brief.

Company management and politics eluded me, and I paid no more thought to it. Still not having thought of an answer for the Isians, I resorted to bribery. Cantaloupes and honeydew were cheap enough insurance for peace of mind. We also spent a greater part of the day at Summit, which allowed them the opportunity to release energy pent-up from the apartment.

The biggest issue I dealt with was one I didn't understand to be a problem to begin with. In retrospect, it should have been obvious, but it took a frank demonstration to drive it in. We were lounging at home after work; I pushed myself to catch up with the news and the twins scratched away on their tablets. Glances at the screen told me they were working on their Sigma projects, which made it an extraordinary night in Isian history. After a while of work, Basil started to snarl at his tablet. The poor machine buckled underneath his ire as he repeatedly tapped and then pounded the screen. He growled his impatience and threw it down.

"Stupid program keeps crashing!"

Tia sat down her pad. "Why?"

"I dunno. It crashes every time I do the integrity test."

"Are you using the newest kernel?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You have to use the old one. Six-one crashes when you do that. I never upgraded because Kappa said the new one has a lot of problems and is real bad."

"Really?" Basil retrieved his tablet and clicked on the screen. A few minutes of computer wizardry later, his mouth gaped open and whistled. "Hey, it works now!"

Tia tilted her screen back up. "Told you."

Her brother reached over and rubbed his head on her neck, purring affectionately. "Oh Sis, you're such a fucking whore."

I choked and teetered off the edge of the couch. What? What? The gaggle of profanity at work bundled together and blunted the ears, but Basil's curse lashed out and stung. It dazed me silly for a moment. Perversely, Tia didn't seem to mind the insult.

"Aw, you're welcome little brother," she cooed. She nuzzled and licked his cheek.

"Basil!" I yelled. "How could you say that to her?"

Both tensed up and stared at me. "Because she's a fucking whore?" Basil said as if was common knowledge.

"Basil!"

Tia wrapped an arm over and squeezed him. "Don't be mad at him, Ly-lee. He's just being nice."

"No that's not nice. Basil, you don't call anyone a fucking whore, especially not your sister."

"Well why not? She is one, isn't she?"

He seemed confused to why I was chastising him. Tia took it even worse, and she hugged her brother while accusing me with a gaze hardened by sisterly guardianship. I shook my head and backed down. We were reading from different scripts.

"Okay, let's restart," I said. "Basil, do you even know what that term even means?"

"Yeah, it's like a pretty girl."

What? God, no. Different scripts indeed. "Where did you hear this?"

"Well, we were watching some show and some guy called this pretty lady a fucking whore. She had nice clothes and stuff. I didn't think it'd be bad calling Tia a fucking whore, because she's real pretty too. She's like the prettiest girl I know. I didn't know you think that's a bad thing."

Tia purred and rubbed his back. She smiled at me. "Do you think I'm a fucking whore, Ly-lee?"

"No, never."

"Wha--... what?"

She seized up in mid-stroke and gaped at me. I realized my mistake a second too late, and Basil reacted before I could explain. He rested Tia down and wrapped himself over her, switching positions.

"Don't listen to him, Sis," he said. "You are too a fucking whore!"

"No she's not!"

Tia sniffed and buried her head into her brother. Before I could clarify, Basil hugged her and rubbed her neck, and then made the situation worse by saying, "Oh, don't listen to him. I don't know why he's being so mean today. You'll always be a fucking whore to me!" He licked her forehead and hissed at me.

"It's not like that! Listen guys--"

You know how long it took to untangle that sorry misunderstanding? I could have built a snow park in hell at summertime with less trouble. Laissez-faire entertainment died that night in the Ivano household, and for the stuff we did watch, I made damn sure to arbitrate the more urbane examples of human culture. Because heaven help me if I have to explain to Arlene why the lizards just called her a "motherfucking bitch-cunt."

Chapter 2.3

She waited until after dinner to show it to me, perhaps thinking I'd be in the best mood with a full stomach. What she didn't realize was that a full stomach didn't matter if it's filled with corn and filler as opposed to the steak meat she and her brother ate. Certainly, stomach envy did little to instill graciousness. But she used her human-style debating techniques and presented me supporting evidence to strengthen her arguments. She showed me a letter on a screen:

Primary Network: United States Dept. Defense (gov. public)

Sender: Aika Tess-Erin (reg.)

Recipient: Tiamat Cusaris (reg.)

Protocol: ICN-L v2.3a

Encryption: PSL.2A

Timestamp: 3933s,23413

Additional Information Hidden

Hey Tia,

Have you visited the city's zoo lately? Arlene told me the renovation for the "Reptiles of the World" is complete. The new exhibit is supposed to be wonderful.

You and your brother should go and check it out for me. I would love to visit you guys and go along too, but they're assigning me back out to the Garden again. More desk jockey work, I imagine. Oh well. Maybe one of these days we'll meet up with each other.

Oh, and tell Basil that, yes, I'm still working on the Zeus project, but I can't give him the specifications for the launch systems. Government secrets and all that.

Take care, Tiamat. Give your brother a hug for me.

"The zoo? You guys want to visit the zoo?"

"Yes," Tia said. "Please, Ly-lee? Please?"

"Why?"

"Why else? Animals!"

"Lots of cool ones!" Basil said.

"I don't know, guys," I said. "I really don't think that's a great idea."

"Haven't we been good, Ly-lee?" Tia asked. "We listened to everything you said."

"We have!" said Basil.

"Yes, but that still doesn't mean I think we should go," I said.

"But have to," Tia said. She held the screen higher. "I mean, not just because we want to, but because Aika wants us to see it for her, and then tell her all about it."

Basil tapped at Aika's name. "See, she doesn't get to see lots of things. We have to do it for her."

"She's one of our best friends."

"And since we're your friend, that means she's your friend too, right?"

"Do it for your friend, Ly-lee. Please?"

"Pretty please?"

Rock-solid logic. Combined with a show of eyes that could made puppies cry, I couldn't formulate a rebuttal. So I agreed, which got me a knock onto my back and a face of saliva. There we went. We were going to the zoo. Just an ordinary outing to see some cute and interesting animals, right? I wished.

Even though I told them I'd take them, I tried to find a loophole around it. Don't get me wrong, I didn't do it because I felt like being an asshole or anything, but because it was a plain bad idea. I've tried my damndest to keep them away from the public, and now they wanted to go straight into the city-fucking-zoo? Yeah, why not? No one goes to that place at all. Nope, no one. Why the hell not?

I contacted Arlene about the plans in order to pry a response out of her. Masochism at work: I really wanted to her to deliver a dose of that Neuman rage, to screech and demand what the hell I was thinking promising them such a thing. If she did, I could be honest with the twins. "Bad news guys. Arlene said no and she threatened to neuter me if I took you to the zoo. Sorry!" Case closed, end of story, everyone's happy.

"Oh sure, take them, please!" she said. "It'll be good for them. They'd love the new reptile exhibit, it's amazing."

"What about all the people there?"

"They'll be fine. It'll do Tia and Basil good to be around more people."

"But--"

"I'll send a tram to your place Tuesday on the seventh. It'll take you to the zoo and you can get in free."

That's why I wasn't a lawyer.

Tuesday morning, the Isians passed on the ham breakfast I made and ate anticipation instead, babbling on about the zoo and making pre-trip sightseeing plans. The Wyvern autotram arrived at 8:30, and the twins spared no time dragging me out and stuffing me headfirst into the vehicle. "Oh, it's nice being out in the open and out of that room, isn't it Ly-lee?" Basil said as he pushed me into the car. After we seated ourselves, the tram closed its door, pulled into the street, and started its preselected route to the zoo.

The tram was a twelve-seater with a pair of seats turned to the road and the rest in two rows facing each other across an aisle. We stayed in the rear. I sat in the middle seat on one side and the twins tangled on the seats across, but even five cushions weren't enough to contain their excitement. They chittered, clicked, chirped, and squeaked to each other in that impenetrable language of theirs.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, I thought. Mark always got on my case about my social life and repeatedly pressed me as a partner on his quests to wreck the nightlife. I always declined, but he wasn't wrong. Getting out into the open would be a good thing for me. Sure, it was a zoo with a pair of lizards and not a hot nightclub with Mark "Pussy Magnet" Ellis, but I was less likely to come home with a fractured skull or a mystery organism in my pubes. Besides, the Isians have been good for the past couple weeks. Quite damned good. I'd like to reward them.

I lounged in the seat and let the vibrations of the road lull me into slumber, until a commotion broke stirred me up. Basil was bellowing so hard that he was a heave away from falling off his seat. "No, no, no!" he squealed. Tia humored him a bit before she pulled him back to the seat and patted his stomach.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"Oh, Tia's being silly," Basil said after catching his wind.

"It's a perfectly fine idea," Tia said.

Basil poked her and stuck out his tongue. "You think so? You think they'll be good with each other?"

"Yep. Why not?"

"Be-cause." He rolled his eyes as if it explained everything. Tia dismissed it with a wave of her claw.

"So who's good with each other?" I asked. Juicy gossip? Eh, didn't care. Juicy Isian gossip? Hell, that's new.

"Well..." Tia started. She smiled and looked down. "Well, I just think that Arlene should really find a mate. And I think I know the perfect one for her."

"She thinks it should be Mark!" Basil said in squeals.

Ha, God! I held in my laughter with my hands over my mouth. Mark and Arlene, together? Perish the thought! You put an explosive Mark plus a volatile Arlene together and you get what's called a warhead, and we use such things to blow up third-world countries. As silly as the idea was, I could imagine it. Hours of screaming, thrashing, and hitting would lead to unimaginably hot and sweaty porno sex. Pondering it, it'd probably be a match made in heaven, though heaven help us if they manage to produce offspring.

I coughed and choked in some spit to bottle the giggling from the thought of it. Tia noticed, and I couldn't contain it anymore. It came loose in a clump that re-infected Basil. She glared at us.

"Oh God, I'm sorry Tia," I said, trying to restrain myself again. "It's just hard to see those two together, that's all."

Basil calmed himself enough and smirked at his sister. "See? Told ya!"

"Well!" Tia said and crossed her arms. "I think it's a great idea!"

"It's an interesting idea," I said, "but I don't think it's the best."

She clicked her tongue and twisted around to stare at me. She nodded her head a few times.

"Well, how about you then?"

"What? Me?"

"Yeah. You don't have a girl yourself, right?"

"Well I... it's..."

I wasn't prepared for my personal life to be probed like this, much less from a lizard. I couldn't say anything and sputtered until Basil came to my rescue.

"What are you talking about?" he asked her.

Tia jumped to my side and bowed over me. "Well, I never see Ly-lee with a girl or anything, and I always wonder why." She pressed her hands against my cheeks and massaged them. While she rubbed, she peered around my head like she was judging a plastic surgery contest. I froze in place and let her move my head around so she could examine it. "He's such a handsome human, I think, but I don't know if he has a mate or not."

"Oh don't be silly," Basil said. He jumped to my other side and patted my chin up. "Look at him, he's Ly-lee! Of course he doesn't have a girl!"

Gee, thanks Basil.

Basil tapped my chin excitedly and chirped. "He has, like, ten of them!"

Woah. Thanks, Basil!

Tia dropped her hands from my cheek. "Ten girls?"

"No, not ten," I said.

"Really?" said Basil. "So, you have more than ten? Like twenty? Wow!"

"So twenty then?" Tia said.

"Yeah, twenty! He has a whole bunch that he keeps to himself."

"How come I never seen them?"

"Well, he keeps them hidden in a secret place that only he knows, because if anyone found out they'd get jealous. He doesn't want to hurt anybody's feeling, so he doesn't tell anyone."

Tia eyed her brother and then me with a judgmental gaze. I shook my head. She sustained the stare for a moment, then smiled.

"Well, Ly-lee sure is a lucky person," she said.

"Yeah, lucky and considerate. I wish I could be like him." He sighed.

"Me too."

She giggled, winked at me, and jumped back on her seat across the aisle to sit out the rest of the trip.

The city had inherited the zoo as a relic from an older time, and for decades, it was the stepchild in the city's family of public works. The zoo's land was originally undeveloped private property owned by local businessman Mr. Hamilton. There, the grass grew wild and wildlife such as birds, small mammals, and hobos made themselves home, and it was where young children spent their days lost from their parents. As the story goes, Hamilton became tired of the plot draining money in property taxes, so in a stroke of inspiration, he gated the place, brought in animal curiosities, and charged people (mostly gullible kids) to see the wild critters. Exotic creatures like the amazing African arctic penguin and the Asiatic capybara presented themselves in makeshift cages. He later christened the zoo as the "Hamilton World of Wonder."

To feed the increasing popularity, Hamilton brought in larger and more dangerous beasts to install some excitement. The operation grew, and there wasn't a kid around the neighborhood that didn't visit the zoo to feed mice to crocodiles at the end of a stick or ride on a neutered lion. But the operation still slipped underneath official notice, or maybe the city didn't care. At least, until a grizzly bear broke loose and mauled five people to death (and injured a dozen more), a rampage that ended when a police sniper team flew in. Graphic video of the frenzy haunted local and national news for days.

After the city possessed the land and the zoo, it had more animals than it could send to the pound, but also a business model already in place. It put the effort getting the World of Wonder up to the minimum standards of safety and animal welfare--just enough to keep the feds off its back. It turned out that the renovations were more expensive than the city had anticipated, to say nothing of its underestimation of operating costs. The Hamilton Zoo didn't recoup the cost of investment, and the governmental resentment surrounding it kept it in perpetual disrepair for years.

Enter the I.C. Wyvern Institute. When the city appointed Wyvern to administrate the zoo, controversy broke out. The institute wished to reinvigorate the place into a "world-class" zoo and add a research center. Lobbies erupted to demolish the lot and repurpose the land for commercial zones. It intensified when local journalists revealed that the deal allowed Wyvern to own the zoo's plot scott-free. The outrage spilled through city hall for weeks under the sentiment that Wyvern worked the city over for free land, and consensus believed the zoo would remain a failure. Several incumbents lost their jobs from the firestorm.

Miraculously, Wyvern managed to keep on the project owing to some sort of legal voodoo. Several years of renovations and marketing later, the Hamilton-Wyvern World Zoo shot up as one of the best zoos in the world. The tourists poured in, and the city got a nice chunk of recognition from the scientific and conservation communities. The awards, plaques, and money rolled in soon after. And the rest as they say is history yadda yadda yadda, you get the idea. Point is, the city made out like a whore at a political convention, and everyone here will tell you they always supported the zoo.

A line of visitors had already formed at the gates when we arrived at the zoo's opening time. A statue of Bazaar the Bear, the zoo's mascot, welcomed us at the junction of the main entryway. It was a chubby thing, with its paws wrapped around a jug of honey and its rump stuck against a log. The caricature of bear froze in marble, forever greeting visitors with an ursine smile warped with human lips. The tram didn't pull into the main entrance Bazaar guarded, but veered into a service road closed to the public. The gates yielded and allowed us to roll straight into the restricted road. We snaked through a grove of trees to a part of the complex seemingly untouched by maintenance crews. Our tram finally parked between a pair of other vehicles at an entrance.

"You have arrived at your destination," announced the tram's computer.

We exited and came to the entrance, a beige door on a wall infested with vines. If it weren't for the blue logo of a stylized wyvern on the door, I wouldn't have known we were still at the zoo.

"Well c'mon," Basil said. He scampered to the door, and it opened without argument.

Past a hallway capped with another door, the zoo welcomed us proper. The Tuesday morning crowd was thin, but still enough to make me nervous. I could at least count one blessing: these were mostly elderly couples and the odd foreign tourist group; most people had work and school to worry about. I didn't look forward to dealing with greasy-palmed children harassing the lizards.

"The reptile exhibit is over here," Basil said, pointing to the northeast corner of a map on an information kiosk. "We can turn to the left path and get there."

Tia shook her head. "No, no, don't go there yet. Save it for last."

"Why?"

"Because you always save the best for last, silly. That's how you're supposed to do it."

They took a moment to study the map with clicks of their tongues. Then, they grabbed my hands and tugged me along the journey to see the pretty little animals.

I've already visited the zoo a few times in all its versions, from Hamilton's to the city's and then Wyvern's. Truthfully, I liked it less and less with each renovation. Sure, the old Hamilton version was dangerous and horrifically unethical, but that was the whole fun of it. It was homely, the way a farmer's market is compared to a megastore--you're more likely to contract salmonella, yes, but Farmer Joe is a goddamned riot to talk to. Even the city version retained some of that charm with its half-assed quality you couldn't replicate intentionally.

The current zoo featured architectural styles from top-class designers with names longer than my street address. They polished the zoo to a fine mirror, one that reflected away the griminess of animals. Shiny, high-tech, elegant, and surely a superior environment for the critters. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but feel they lost something in translation. Gone was the charm and homeliness. Wyvern was all about design. A home without a bent nail isn't the same.

Now reading information holographs and watching animals lounge in automatic pens that fed them with robotic arms, I still felt the same way.

It didn't matter to my lizard friends, though. Like six-year-olds at a candy factory, they gobbled one animal exhibit after another. We went to see damned near everything on God's green earth: flamingos, black bears, brown bears, polar bears, monkeys, pygmy monkeys, elephants, foxes, boars, penguins, emus, ostriches, rodents of all sorts, and who knows what else. The twins picked them off one-by-one right off assembly line: no rest, all animals. You'd be surprised to know how exhausting it is just to see a roadrunner chase about in its dusty enclosure.

Fortunately, the other visitors left us alone. Some gave confused gazes here and there, and sometimes a clump of people gathered around the Isians when they were viewing an animal's exhibit, but the crowd kept a good distance. I guess they figured the twins were part of the zoo's menagerie and that it was some sort of gimmick. I was glad to play along.

"What times do you take them out the cages?" a mother asked me while the Isians chirped away at sleeping grizzly bear. A small child grasped her hand with a thumb in his mouth and his eyes fixated on the lizards.

"Oh, every morning around ten. They need to get a good exercise."

"Are they dangerous?"

"Completely harmless, ma'am. They're vegetarians."

"Oh. I thought they ate meat, since there's so many dangerous predators in Africa."

"Pardon?"

"Africa. These African lizards of yours. What were they called again?"

"Yes, right. The Bolo-Striped Great Saharan Lizard. From Africa."

"Oh, I knew it. Do they fight with the pandas that eat their bamboo?"

"Pandas?"

"Yes, pandas. The live with pandas in the wild, don't they?"

"Yeah."

I fielded dozens of similar questions, and the crowd would nod and hum in understanding, stay a few minutes to observe the lizards, and disperse to find more interesting sights. In between, I made damned sure to avoid the real keepers.

"Look Tia, they kinda look like chipmunks," Basil said when we reached the meerkat den. The rodents (or rodent-like things) scampered in and out of their lairs and sat upright on their haunches to the coos and adoration from observers. The twins peered over the wall to take a closer view.

"Woah, there's a lot of them," said Tia.

"Oh, there's a small one right there!" He pointed to a youngling clinging to its mother.

Tia cooed. "Aw, it's a baby." She licked her lips and dripped some spittle into the dirt. "They look so tasty."

"That one over there looks fat and juicy."

That was enough for me. I pulled them away from the exhibit before they figured that a whole lot of other things in the zoo looked good to eat. It was my turn to drag them along behind me. "Come on guys. It's time to see the reptiles," I said. I got no complaints save for disappointed whimpers and hanging gazes to the delectable meerkats we left behind.

An archway marked the reptile section of the zoo with a marquee reading "Reptiles of the World" in glowing green letters that morphed, grew legs, and then ran off the sign when various scaly creatures lumbered into the frame. Different themes catering to specific creatures divided the exhibits: Camp Crocodilia, The Land of Lizards, Serpent Isle, and Tortoise Turf.

"Camp Crocodilia is this way," Basil said. He tugged my left arm toward a holograph of a sombrero-wearing crocodile that stood upright and greeted "hola amigos" to visitors.

Tia pulled my other arm the opposite way. "No, no, we're going to The Land of Lizards."

Upon feeling resistance, they began playing tug-of-war with my body.

"I want to see the crocs, Tia!"

"Lizards first! Lizards first!"

I tore my arms away from their grips, causing them to fall down on their hands to the ground.

"Enough guys! Here's what's going to happen: we're going to see the lizards first and then go to see the crocodiles. All right? Come on, let's go."

Tia retook my hand and held her head high. She smirked at Basil, who kept on his fours and brooded alongside.

"Fine," he said. "If Ly-lee wants to see them first, then I guess we'll go."

"I don't want to see them first," I said. "We just have to save the best for last, silly."

In an instant, they swapped expressions. Basil chirped and said, "Oh right!" and took the hand that Tia had dropped. He took her place in leading to The Land of Lizards, and Tia trailed behind us.

"Ly-lee, I changed my mind," she said." Let's go to Camp Crocodilia first."

I whistled and pretended I heard nothing.

Just my luck, The Land of Lizards turned out to be the largest of the four sections, and it took some commit to get through all the way. You figured since you (or your friend) kept a green anole for a pet as a kid that you've seen them all, right? Maybe you were a cool kid and had an iguana instead, which qualified you as a reptile expert. Not on your life. Wyvern wasn't fucking around when they put the exhibit together. We ran through all sorts of chameleons, Gila monsters, iguanas (green, marine, and in between), monitors, geckos, skinks, agamids, and at least three different creatures with the word "dragon" in their names. And that's just the reptiles I could remember.

I didn't have a particular thrill seeing these lizards though. Pardon, no offense to all of scaly-kind everywhere. I'm sure that they were all fascinating and unique creatures. It's just that after you've been around Isians for months--and lived with them for weeks--it got old watching these creatures lounge on their damned rocks with the same expressions on their scaled snouts. God had a limited supply of perkiness when he created earth's creatures, and between mammals and strippers, reptiles got the shit end of the deal. The Isians spoiled me when it came to lizard things.

Of course, my compatriots didn't share the sentiment. I found my only break when they spent ten minutes trying to converse with a Nile monitor through clicks and chirps. The last lizard we visited was a komodo dragon. It was a spectacular thing, but not for outward reasons. It wore a plain brown coat and seemed like a nun to the Mardi Gras of other lizards. It was sedentary even by reptilian standards. And neither was it a particularly attractive creature, with its body a reptilian version of a bulldog. Besides those, the komodo was striking because it was huge. I've always referred the Isians as "giant lizards," and that was a proper term in my experience. But this beast was a shipping barge in comparison.

The single dragon lounged in its pen among dirt, moss, and rocks. A willowy tree grew in the enclosure, which the animal took advantage of by wallowing in its shade. Even with its size and girth, it melted into the dusty earth and made itself difficult to spot. I couldn't find it for the longest while.

Basil squealed at the information holograph at its pen. "A real-life dragon? A dragon! Sis, a dragon!"

"Oh, let me see!" Tia said. She stretched on her toes over the rails.

While Tia was hunting for it, Basil read aloud the text of the information panel.

"'Komodo dragon. Varanus komodensis. The komodo monitor lizard, commonly called the komodo dragon, is the largest living species of lizard in the world. Indigenous to the South Pacific islands of Indonesia, the carnivorous komodo feeds on a large variety of prey, such as deer, boars, and carrion. With lengths of up to three meters long, komodos have been known to kill and eat prey as large as water buffalo. The saliva of the dragon--'"

"Oh, oh, I see it!" exclaimed Tia when she took sight of the creature loafing underneath the tree. She punctuated her excitement by reaching over the railing and waggling her finger toward the lizard. "The dragon! Right over there. The big brownie!"

Basil scanned the pen. "I see it. Huh. Doesn't look like the picture at all." He swayed back and forth between the dragon and the picture on the holograph.

"He's so big. And so strong. And so handsome."

"He? It's a girl."

"No he isn't."

"I'm pretty sure she is."

"It's a boy, trust me."

Basil frowned at her. "How would you know?"

"'Cause I can tell. Just certain things I know about. Those strong muscles, those handsome scales, those sharp teeth... oh, it's a boy all right. A strong, handsome one!"

She folded her arms on the railing, rested her head on them, and exhaled a fanciful sigh. When she began to purr, I felt something wrong about it. Purrs are methodical and uniform--a honeydew would elicit a purr, a steak would cause an identical one, and a rat for dinner the same still. However, a vibrato wove through Tia's purr and tuned it almost to a singsong, as if a vocal cord bootlegged a hum inside and gave it a silky quality unlike anything I've heard before. I didn't understand, or couldn't understand, what it signified, so I tapped on the railing and remained silent.

Tia stopped purring and, with a vibrant chirp, hoisted herself atop the beam. She gripped on her perch with all four claws and leaned into the pen. "I'm going to go talk to him," she said. "Dragons probably have all sorts of wonderful things to tell."

"That's not a dragon," Basil said.

"Sure he is. The sign even said so."

"That's just a name. It doesn't mean she's actually one."

"Why would they call him a dragon if he isn't really one?"

"Because humans named her. They love naming things that make no sense, like watermelons. They do it for fun or something. Besides, even if she was really a dragon, what makes you think she'll want to talk to you?"

She smirked. "Because, I'm a dragon too."

"No you're not."

"Well, I'm named after one."

"That doesn't count."

"Sure it does!"

Basil snapped his tongue and banged on the railing, causing Tia to wobble on it, but she rebalanced herself without trouble. He sat back down, snorted, and crossed his arms. His sister grounded back and forth, re-gripped the rail with her claws to optimize her perch, and eyed the komodo. Her tail swished behind her and batted me away inadvertently.

"Well, let's go see the next lizard," I said. "Come on, Tia, let's get down from there."

"Yeah, come on," Basil said. "I'm done with this one."

Tia ignored both of us and hunched forward some more. She brought her hindquarters down, spread her legs apart, and coiled the limbs together like a spring. The tail stiffened behind her and she locked herself with an arched back. Her head poked deep over the side. She looked serious.

"All right Tia, let's get down from there." I tugged at her tail to coax her down, but she resisted. I gripped and pulled harder. "Come on, don't do anything silly. Don't... don't!"

The tail slipped through my hand, and I clawed on empty air until my ass met the ground. When I got up, the railing was empty except for a metallic whine.

With limbs outstretched and a tail sailing behind her, Tia glided into the pen and right into the path of the tree. Dozens of leaves rustled and fell when she latched onto the closest branch. She dug her claws into the bark and pulled her body onto the tree's arm, and the wood creaked in protest and buckled under her weight. The branch sprung back to normal as she moved closer to the trunk. Now over the komodo, she ogled down at the lazy reptile.

"Tia! Tia! Get out of there!" I cried, gripping the still-vibrating beam.

Basil grabbed my pants leg and tugged me away. "Forget about her."

"But she's still in there!"

"She'll be fine," he said without a single glance back. "I wanna see the crocodiles."

---

The beasts that inhabited Camp Crocodilia looked right at home in the crocodile pit, a large system of interconnected water holes submerging most of the area. Concrete islands with observation decks dotted the pit in the mud, shallows, and deep water, and they connected with each other through a series of suspended bridges. Basil and I settled on a platform hovering over of a group crocodiles basking near a shore. It provided a candid view of the dozens of crocs lounging in the mud just a couple meters away (any closer would be too candid for my comfort). It provided a candid smell, too, from the bloated air wafting from the bog. The air and moisture baked together and carried the scent of the swamp and beasts in a way I imagine a sewer would be like. It didn't much help my digestion of the Burrito del Cocodrilo I just ate.

Basil lounged on his belly on the viewing bench and was mimicking the primitive reptiles with an open maw that waited for something to stick its head in on a drunken bet. Just paint him green and bat him ugly with warts and bumps, and you would never know the difference.

Crocodiles weren't the reptiles on my mind though. That honor belonged to a certain female Isian and her new Indonesian expatriate friend. Let's leave her alone with some huge meat-eating lizard to make small talk, why not? What's the worst that could happen? Christ, some caretaker I was. Most sane parents would be screaming bloody murder and trying to call the National Guard by now, but not me, no sir. To be fair, Tia certainly wasn't defenseless. If I were a betting man, I'd take the odds for the white lizard in an Isian vs. Komodo fight. Too bad I wasn't.

A commotion broke out in the pit when something tried to wade ashore. Another animal, one larger by half than the newcomer, suddenly became territorial and snapped at it with its enormous pegged-teeth jaw. The fight splashed a cascade of water that reached the platform and almost to my feet. The scuffle was curt, though, and resolved itself when the smaller reptile retreated back to friendlier waters. The dominant crocodile posed at the water's edge and bellowed as the loser swam away. I changed my mind: I should be glad she took an interest to the komodo because, had she not, she might've jumped in with these goddamned things.

"Geez, that's a freaking mean one there," I said. "What's his problem, anyway? It's not like there's no more room for another crocodile."

"Her," said Basil.

"Eh?"

"That's a girl crocodile. They don't keep any males in there because then little baby crocs start appearing, and they don't like that for some reason. Besides, that other one was an alligator, and there's no more room for alligators."

"Really? I can't even tell the difference."

"Yeah, these are all crocodiles here. There's some alligators on the other island with about ten caimans, I think." He pointed to a far corner of the pit. "I saw a pretty gharial somewhere there too."

"Hey, maybe you should consider working here, buddy. You seem to be an expert on these things."

He shook his head. "Not really. Na-tal-ia," he said, drawing out the name, "taught me. She knows a whole lot about reptiles and stuff, way more than I do."

"She's some kind of reptile biologist at Wyvern, I take it?"

"No, but she does study them. It's her hobby. She keeps a lot of them, too. A lot. I don't know how she takes care of them all, but she does. She's pretty amazing." He frowned a bit and then sat up. "Hey Ly-lee, can I ask you for a favor?"

"Sure. What's up?"

Basil opened his mouth, but then clamped it down. He bit his lip and kept still like he was debating what to say. He shook his head and finally blurted, "Can you teach me how to sing?"

Sing? The hell did this come from? I couldn't even keep tune to an electrocuting crow, to say less of teaching anyone how to do so. They would hang me in front of a tribunal for war crimes. "I can't teach you to sing, little guy. I can't even sing."

"Oh." He looked down in disappointment, sighed, and lay back down on the bench. "I thought you look like someone who could."

"I'm really bad, Basil. You can probably sing much better than I can."

"No, I'm horrible. I can't sing."

"Hey, don't say that," I said. Why was he suddenly concerned with his singing, of all things? But he looked genuinely disappointed, so I patted his frill and rubbed his neck to console him. "Remember when you were singing in the bathroom? That was pretty nice. I think you have it in you."

"That wasn't singing at all. That was just humming. It doesn't mean anything."

"Humming is just a step away from singing. All you need is a little practice to get it up there."

"I've been trying to practice. I just never get any better."

"You always get better with practice."

He shook his head.

"Look, why don't sing something for me?" I asked. "I'll tell you whether it's good or not."

"No, you don't want to hear that."

"How can I help you sing if you won't give me an example? I won't judge you, I promise. I just want you to sing, just a little bit."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure! Give it to me, please."

He sighed, stiffened up, and placed his feet and hands on the edges of the bench. He leaned onto the backrest with his tail coiled around his body and eyed me with an uncertain glance. I nodded. He breathed out with another sigh and refilled his chest with the breaths to power the song. And then he sang:

Oh muse, thou dear one, sing to me,

Commence and order my song.

Cool breezes blowing from thy groves,

Inspire my breast and rouse my heart.

Calliopeia thou wise

Principal of the muses delightful,

Thou too, wise mystery guide,

Leto's child, thou Delian Paean,

Be propitious and stand by me.

Basil sat with an uneasy expression after he sung the last note and waited for my approval. I couldn't say anything. I expected squawks, clicking, whistling, and other Isian noises that I was familiar with, but his vocals bewildered me into silence. His voice struck the notes with engineered precision, and although the song was short, it enraptured me like a cobra charmer. Singing! Actual, honest-to-goodness singing! And it was wonderful. The little song left me confused as all hell.

"Told you I wasn't good," he said after mulling over my silence.

I broke out of my awestruck reverie. "Oh Basil! That was beautiful!"

"No it isn't. I saw your face." He looked away. "You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"Listen," I said, taking his head beneath his ears and making him face me. "I am one-hundred-percent completely serious with you. That was some of the singing I've ever heard. I swear, I'm not lying. Honest."

He placed his hands over mine and clicked. "You think so?"

"Yes! Absolutely!"

He thought to himself for a moment, then took my hands off his head and smiled and said, "Thanks Ly-lee." A deep breath escaped his snout. "But you're the only one that likes it, anyway."

"Who could possibly hate your singing? Because I'm telling you right now, anyone who does is an idiot and isn't worth talking to."

"Girls. Except one, but she kinda doesn't count."

He went back to the crocodiles after leaving the revelation like it was some universal knowledge, and he began humming echoes of the prior song. I didn't know how else to respond, so I just enjoyed the encore.

"Let's go get Sis," he said after finishing. "I wanna go home now."

---

It's astonishing how much an Isian can accomplish in an hour once they set their minds to something. Finish a dozen engineering units, eat an entire roast pig, or converse with a zookeeper while leaning over a giant brown lizard.

"... so that's why we used titanium alloys for the intake pressure valves."

Tia mimicked the form of the valve with one claw while scratching the komodo's neck with the other. Somehow, they were both outside the enclosure. Her conversation partner was obviously a Hamilton-Wyvern zookeeper from what he wore: khaki shorts, a brown shirt, and the most bewildered face in the world. The man's confusion grew more distorted when he saw Basil leap next to his sister.

"Time to go," Basil said.

"No, no, not yet," Tia said. She brushed her brother side and called out to me. "Hey Ly-lee! Come meet our new friends!"

I stepped cautiously to the group so I could gauge the keeper's reaction. He ignored me and stood transfixed on the twins. Tia took my arm and brought me in front of him.

"This is Brian," she introduced. "Brian, this is Ly-lee, our best human friend!" She chattered and clapped her hands like a mother introducing her single son to a new girl at dinner.

I waved my hands to greet the keeper, but he looked right past through. Tia tugged at his shorts.

"Say hello to Ly-lee, Brian. He's real nice!"

"Oh. Hi. Ly-lee," he said in a confused monotone. I greeted him back.

"Brian's the reptile keeper at the zoo," said Tia. "He takes care of everything here, including the dragon. Hey!" She stepped over the komodo and shooed away her brother, who had been amusing himself by repeatedly poking into the dragon's hide. The twins took to either side of the dragon and squawked over it. The komodo didn't seem to mind.

"So... these lizards. They're yours?" Brian asked me while fixated on the arguing Isians.

"They're kind of on loan."

"Isians. Isian lizards? I don't... I don't believe it."

"Me neither, buddy."

Failing to withstand his sister's determination, Basil slunk away from the dragon and crossed his arms. He stuck his tongue at it when Tia brought her attention back to us.

"And this handsome dragon's name is Sydney," she said, stroking the komodo's head. She nosed the dragon's snout and giggled when its forked tongue brushed over her nostrils. "Dragons are so nice."

"I'm glad you made some new friends here," I said. I wasn't sure if I really was.

"Oh yeah. Sydney lives in such a lovely place. Brian actually designed the pen. Can you believe it? Isn't it beautiful? There's a tree, a warm rock to sleep on, lots of comfortable grass and stuff, isn't it pretty? I think it's so pretty." She stood against the railing and took in the view of the pen. "So pretty."

Brian muttered an obligatory gratitude, apparently still unable to shake away his shock. I figured it was about time that we stopped tormenting the poor guy.

"Well Tia, let's say goodbye to Brian and Sydney and head on out."

"Already? We can't we stay a bit longer? I wanted to play in Sydney's pen for a little bit. Please?"

"No, it's time to go. Your brother wants to go back."

"He always gets bored early. He doesn't know how to have fun!"

Basil's long tongue migrated toward her back.

"Time to go, Tiamat," I said. "Right now."

She sulked and exhaled a reluctant "fiiiine."

Tia took a good five minutes saying her goodbyes to her new human and lizard friends. She thanked Brian for his time with a lick to the nose and focused on Sydney. She clutched the sides of the dragon's head and, purring, brushed her tongue to his snout, which he happily returned. Basil, meanwhile, snorted and tapped his tail restlessly against the ground. He and I were honorary brothers, as it happened.

On the ride back home, Basil rolled on my lap and rested his head on a plush of Bazaar the Bear I had bought at the gift shop, having drained his energy from exploring the zoo and enduring his sister's spiel. She sat across the aisle from us and was relentless--stopping only to eat in shallow breaths as she waxed poetic on the wonders of the Hamiliton-Wyvern World Zoo and its animals. Most of the time she just blathered on about Sydney. Meeting the dragon had truly been the highlight of her day.

"Ly-lee, I think I'm done with the zoo for a while," Basil said to me. I stroked his head and nodded in agreement.

3. His sister's keeper.

Chapter 3.1

"She's still talking about the zoo," he complained.

Basil sat on the toilet seat me while I was finishing grooming myself, a refugee from his sister's annoyances in the kitchen. I didn't mind sharing anymore so long as he didn't insist on making himself home while I was showering or striking a conversation with Mr. John.

"She'll calm down soon enough," I said.

"I don't know. When she really likes something, she doesn't forget them easily. I mean, it's been over two weeks already. She wants me to help her write a letter to them and stuff all morning. We won't be able to leave if she keeps on doing this." He groaned. "I need to find some fresh air. It's stuffy in here."

I took out a flask of cologne and dabbled my neck with the pungent liquid. Basil craned his neck up take a better look at the bottle.

"Why do you put on that stuff?"

"It smells nice. People like it if you smell nice."

"Oh. Can I see it?"

I handed him cologne and told him to go wild. It was a cheap piece I bought for a pittance at some dime store--the kind that had a foreign-looking name embellished with fancy diacritics but turns out wasn't really French. He took a whiff from the open bottle and winced. He studied it some more, looked at me with reservation, and then, hesitantly, splashed the fluid on his claws and rubbed his throat with it, squealing when the alcohol bit in. He handed back the bottle and sniffed his hands.

"It's different, I guess," he said.

"Hey," I said, "the ladies like it." I toweled off my hands and left the bathroom.

Lying on her stomach on the kitchen table, Tia worked on her personal tablet. Her tail twitched behind her with each word she recited. "'Great?' 'Nice?' 'Excellent?' Hm, how about 'splendid?'"

"'Capital,'" I said. "I always liked that word."

"Like, 'I had a capital time'?"

"Something like that, yeah. It sounds refined."

"Oh, huh. Thanks! I can always count on you to help me out." She glared at her brother. "Unlike someone else here."

Basil rolled his eyes. "It's not like Sydney can read, so what's the point?"

"Oh shush. You're always so negative." She hopped down from the table and nuzzled her brother. A frown crawled across her face, and she sniffed into her brother's neck. She recoiled back when something struck her senses. "What's with that smell?"

"It's new. Doesn't it smell good?"

"It smells awful! Why'd you do that?"

"Oh come on. It's not that bad."

Tia stuck out her tongue and cringed in disgust. "You can't go around smelling like that, people'll think you're weird. Look at Ly-lee." She stood up and, gripping my shoulders for balance, brought her snout to my neck. Her nostrils flared open and she closed her eyes in concentration. She pulled back and sighed. "He smells good. You should smell like him."

Basil wore a face of utter confusion.

"Come on guys, let's get out of here," I said while he still had his mouth half-open and before it could turn into another squabble.

We didn't bother getting any breakfast that morning. We didn't have to: after several weeks, all the rest of the passengers of our N-Freight line caught that we only rode in SX14's rearmost car (aged, weeks-old habits die hard). Before we reached the station, there would be a crowd gathered around the rear of the boarding platform and each would-be passenger jostled for position for the privilege to join us on our travels to Summit. Well, join the Isians, anyway, because who cares about a pasty-ass human? I was fine with it though, because they would bring along offerings of food to placate the insatiable creatures. Not random cheap stuff, either, but deli subs and roast beef cuts and stuff. Too much for even the twins to eat, so I ended up getting some nice pieces myself. It got to the point where I didn't need to bother packing lunch for myself. Riding with lizards was awesome.

Passengers packed into our train car like a cheap can of sardines, but we had plenty of room to move around as the crowd left a considerate buffer for us. I was scratching behind Basil's ear to my left while Tia was making small talk on my right. She munched on a sausage link someone had given her and went to work making a new friend.

"Hi! I haven't you seen you ride here before. My name's Tiamat, what's yours?"

"Michael," he said, waving hello.

"Oh, Michael. That's a nice a nice name. Have you ever been to the zoo?"

"Once, with my family."

"Oh isn't it nice there? Did you meet Sydney?"

"No, I don't think so."

Basil lay next to me and stared at the other passengers in the car during his sister's preaching about the wonders of the zoo. One passenger tried to stir his attention by asking, "Hey Basil, how's it going today?" and a few others few others tried waving and snapping their fingers at him, but he ignored them. They gave up and turned their attentions to his livelier female counterpart. It seemed a little odd, but I didn't think much of it.

Halfway to Summit, he motioned to his sister and asked, "Ly-lee, can we change seats? I want to sit next to her."

"Sure," I said. I moved to the other side of Tia and left my original seat for him.

He scooted next to her, but then frowned. He got down, came in front of me, and stared. I couldn't understand his intent.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

He patted the space between me and Tia. "Can you make room here?"

"Oh... sure."

I prepared to get up and go back to my previous seat. Before I could, he wedged himself in that little space and forced me to shuffle over to the right. With the newly minted seat open, he leaped into the space between his sister and me. Tia, occupied lecturing the biology of komodos to her audience, was oblivious.

"Better now?" I asked him as he nestled down into the cushions. He continued his observations without a word the rest of the way. Strange.

At the Summit station, he turned loose, chirping and pulling his sister along with him, and led the way to the Spire. I followed them inside and was about to make my way to the labs, but a bellow rammed through all the other sounds of the lobby and stopped me before I could: "Hey! Lyle! Get ya ass over here, son!"

I swear, the lobby was Summit's official little pow-wow and Aimee's desk was the campfire. It seemed like everyone I wanted to meet, and those I didn't, showed up there and waited for me to arrive fashionably late. No offices, no voice calls, not even an email. Just meet up on Aimee's desk and let fate take its course.

With his fedora in hand, Ernest waved for attention and hollered at me.

"Hey, ya son-of-a-bitch! Too pretty to thank ol' Uncle Ernest for bailing your ass out, eh?"

"Thanks for bailing my ass out, you old bastard," I said. "How did you do it, anyway? Don't tell me it was your goddamned charm again. That's bullshit and you know it."

He laughed, just containing his guffaws enough to pat my shoulder in greeting. He fitted his hat back on his balding head.

"Hah, says you, kid. Ol' Ernest still got his power where his heart is. You got a fine young lady with a cold heart? Bring her the whole damned four-ring Lefko super special and boom! Dame melts like butter. Every single time, just like my pops before me and gramps before him. It's the secret touch, trade secret in the family, you know. Whole generations of Lefkos owe their lives to it."

"You're a dirty bastard." I mock-punched his shoulder. "An old dirty, lying bastard. Don't ever change."

He laughed again and slapped Aimee's desk. The receptionist herself stood patiently behind it, hands folded in front of her and a Pleasant Smile auto-execution program running on her lips.

"So, how'ya doing, anyway?" Ernest asked.

"Pretty good, can't complain," I said.

He smirked. He took the brim of his hat, twisted it to the side, and shook his head at me like a father intimidating a misbehaving son. "Can't complain, eh? You steal a bunch of expensive-ass lizards from Tetra, make 'em live in your goddamned apartment, and ya can't complain? Really, Lyle?"

"Hey, you know it's not like that. Don't give me that."

"I'm just makin' sure you're know what you're getting into, kid. You know, for your own good." He ruffled the collar of his coat over his neck when I glared at him. "The last goddamn thing I need to hear are those assholes back at corporate bringing hell because their precious lizards broke their goddamned tails or something. You know what'll happen? Management witch hunts, that's what. Fucking annoying."

"They're fine. They're happier than I've even seen them, in fact."

He patted my shoulders again. "That's good, keep it up. I guess it's just a few more weeks before those dumbshits finally get their heads out from their asses and put 'em somewhere else. You know, what they should've done weeks ago."

"What?"

"Yeah, Arlene's been working with brass to get those Isians into some shack downtown. Though, maybe less 'working' and more screaming. Oh man, what I would've paid to hear that. That girl, oh that girl is almost like the missus. A goddamn firecracker." He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. "Ah, just a few more weeks, Lyle, and they'll be outta your hair for good."

"Yeah. That'll be great. I can't wait," I said, saying what I thought he wanted to hear. Said what I thought I wanted to hear. I listened to my own words as I spoke it. There was something there, something that I couldn't bear myself to repeat. Ernest nodded his head in agreement and repeated "just a few more weeks" before going on a familiar tangent about the incompetence of Tetra management. Just a few more weeks and I'll be rid of lizards. It was a great idea, one that I welcomed with gracious and open arms. But... something bit at me, someplace I couldn't scratch and be rid of. I just didn't know.

"Goddamn them," Ernest said, bringing himself back down from a rant that missed my ears. He brushed his left sleeve and listened to the PA announcing the time. "Gotta go and make sure the children don't blow something up back at the labs. Where are those little tykes of yours, eh?"

His eyes caught something in the crowd, and he whistled and called out to it.

I could recognize those familiar taps of claw tips scraping on the marble, interspersed between surprised yelps from the crowd. On cue, Tia scrambled over and pulled herself onto the desk. She sat politely on the desktop, snuggling her tail around her body, and chirped.

"Hi Ernest!" she said.

"Ah, there's my girl. How'ya doing?"

Ernest scratched the soft area behind Tia's ears, eliciting a delighted purr from her. She rolled her eyes back, closed her eyelids, and twisted down onto the desk. His fingers then tickled through the skin underneath her frill, and she squealed in delight and spayed her body across the desk. Ernest continued stroking her and asked where her brother was.

"He was behind me," she said, her voice soft and listless.

He switched hands so he could pivot around and lean over the desk to try to find this missing brother. He whistled sharply, but nothing responded. After some more verbal coaxing, the errant lizard finally peered his head out from the opposite side of the desk. He stared at us with the same neutral expression he bore on the train, just gazing and saying nothing.

"Ah, there you are," Ernest called out. "Come on over here. You ain't gonna let your sis take all of this herself, will ya?"

Basil narrowed his eyelids and then ducked his head back beyond our view. Ernest gave me a quizzical glance.

"What's with him?"

"He's being... Basilisk," Tia said. Her tongue hung out from her corner of her mouth and slurred her words.

Ernest shrugged and tickled her throat with an index and middle finger. Tia flicked her tail at the teasing, and the errant appendage whipped harder and harder until Aimee caught it before it could do damage. She squirmed and breathed in pants as he played her like a flute. He gave a final neck tickle and then patted her sides.

"Now," he said to her, "if Lyle gets troublesome, you be sure to tell me and I'll straighten him out, okay?"

She sighed and nodded weakly. Ernest turned to me, wiggled his fingers, and winked. "Lefko's secret touch," he said. "Never fails on the ladies."

---

Every time I see Ernest, I found myself dreading the day ahead. The man carried bad omens. Before he left to manage his labs, he told me, "Fair warning, kid. Bunny's bringing an early surprise today. Tried to knock some sense into 'em, but got overruled by some Summit asshole. You guys try not to kill yerselves, eh?"

All the other non-Secondary labs, apparently wrestling in a convenient fit of productivity, dumped about a few thousand quads of unformed data on us before the shift started, a pile of junk ripe for processing. The assholes did this every few months: collect weeks upon weeks of unfiltered datastreams from deepest pits of engineering hell, coalesce the debris together, wash it with sewage bits from all the other labs, and dump the whole oozing pile on Secondary's doorstep like a stork delivering a half-aborted mutant baby. Tradition named these days "The Bunny's Boutique." (Why we had such always have such ludicrous names for these things, I haven't the faintest idea.)

As soon he discovered the rabbit's thoughtful gift for us, Mark made an emergency request with Computer and Robotics Resources to bring a smart agent online to help clean the mess. Unfortunately, CRR rarely turned around in less than several days for a requisition request, emergency or not (assuming anyone believed that Secondary was capable of having emergencies). We had anticipated the Boutique to occur next week, and that's when Mark had ordered the agent for. No one could blame him for his lack of psychic ability to foresee such dickery from higher-ups.

The foreman was still on call to Resources while we slammed into the data, his cries stifling out our tapping. "No, no, I need it now, not Friday. Yes, today! What? Why the hell are you buying computer systems and AIs if you're not going to use the goddamn things? Fuck Three-Eleven! No, you don't understand, I'm up to my fucking dick in shit and Tetra cut off the balls of all my guys in my lab, get my goddamn agent online!"

As much as we would've liked an AI to help dredge up the mess, none of us really cried that it wasn't available. A couple of those things could take the place of all our jobs, and human ingenuity only got you so far. The pro-human labor HELP Act gave some breather room, but not enough for us to complain since it'd only cover half the labs if Tetra decided to replace us with machines. All of us needed to prove we were useful, and Primary, in its own twisted way, did us a favor.

Small blessings, then, that the Isians contained themselves and didn't bother us while we worked our asses off sledging through the data. Tia bundled herself on the holo platform with a quadruple set of tablets. One of them, I guessed, was surely her letter. Meanwhile, Basil orchestrated the Alie-Grommot from the base panel and examined the output warping and flickering around his sister on holo platform. Like on the train and lobby before, he seemed stoic and indifferent. It was uncharacteristic, especially for an Isian, but I couldn't the spare the effort to concern myself when hordes of data were assaulting me.

No one could afford to get up for lunch. A few of the industrious types, in a fine display of multitasking, had food brought to their stations and chased down small and quick bites with goblets of data. The Isians had no such deficiencies, of course. Basil stirred up to greet the lunch hour first, and he tried to pull Tia away from her work by her tail. It accomplished nothing but to invoke annoyed squeals. Tia slipped her tail away and continued on her work, and he would try again. Eventually, his sister relented and stacked her tablets on the platform. She stretched and bounded out from the arena. Basil followed her.

I stopped him when he climbed next me. He looked on with that same detached face he had all day, but this time flavored with a pinch of annoyance as he watched his sister exit the lab. He clicked his tongue and twisted his head to me.

"Hey buddy. How's your day today?" I asked.

He replied with a curt, "Fine," and started running his nails across his chin and neck.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

It was like talking to a completely different person. Or hell, a completely different creature. Basil didn't make direct eye contact with me, instead drawing his vision out to a distance past me as if longing for a faraway place. If the Isians were children before, then this was puberty: distant, rebellious, and wanting nothing more than to make the world go away.

"Okay, little buddy." I patted his head. "You know that if there's anything wrong, you can tell me, right?"

He grunted and pulled away. "Yes, I know. Can I go now?" A hint of irritation seeped his voice.

"Yeah. It's good."

Without wasting energy for any more words, he climbed the rest the stairs and left me confused and more than a bit worried. He didn't make an appearance in the lab for the rest of the day, failing to return with Tia after lunch. I took a break to the pit and asked her where he was.

"Probably sleeping in the tree," she said, not taking her attention away from her spread array of panels. "Something he ate gave him a tummy ache."

"Is he all right?"

She nodded.

"Say," I said, "do you know if anything's been bothering him lately?"

"What do you mean?"

"He seems kind of off today, like there's something wrong. But he won't tell me anything."

She broke her study on the tablets and looked at me, then gazed at the lab door. She shrugged and turned back to her work. I went back to do the same.

By the end of the day, the battle with the terminal keyboard deformed my fingers into a claw. My vision suffered even greater. The glowing images of thousands of screens burned themselves in the back of my eyes and toremented even with closed eyelids. My coworkers weren't much better off. Rows of the exhausted sat broken in their places, heads on their boards and unresponsive. The stronger sorts kept on working at a mechanical pace with the spirit drained from their faces. These were the unlucky ones: they weren't the dedicated or the hardy but poor zombies unable to will back into their humanity. It was post-traumatic stress disorder for the technical set.

Our fearless leader, having conceded his battle with CRR hours ago, keeled over an empty terminal alongside the rest of us. He absolved himself by cursing at Tetra, God, and lagomorph-kind everywhere. CRR said they would get that smart agent up for us as soon as possible. Next week.

Before my mind could fully disintegrate itself into the screen, a welcomed set of hands gripped my shoulders and rubbed some life back into me. A smooth nuzzled into the sore crook of my neck and shoulders and brought relief through a massaging purr. I dropped my hands to my sides, loosened my shoulders, and let myself melt against the smooth scales. The Isian licked my ear and whispered a soft, feminine voice into it.

"You've been working too hard."

"Lots of work, gotta finish 'em all."

She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled my body close to hers. My weight teetered on the unstable chair, but she held me tightly against it like a rocking cradle. She crossed her arms across each other to place her hands to my cheeks, tapped her nails against my skin, and rubbed circles with her palms. I let my tired body fall into her embrace. She licked my earlobe again.

"It's not healthy working too hard," she said.

"Being healthy doesn't pay the bills."

She chuckled and tapped my nose. "You humans and your bills and worries and stuff. Can't you guys just be happy?"

"We do. We just don't have enough money to do it all the time because of the bills."

Her only response was an introspective, "Hmmm." She dropped her head down against my chest and tickled my neck with her frill. It was pleasant enough, and I lay back, closed my eyes, and let her warm touch and throaty purrs lull my eyes closed. She rubbed me for only a few minutes, all said and done, but it seemed to have stretched into an hour under the influence of sleepiness. I enjoyed it more than I had any right to.

The tension of my chair's backrest jerked me back up and into the land of the living when Tia released my neck. I blinked my eyes open and steadied myself. She clicked her tongue and tugged my arm to bring my attention to her brother on the aisle-way. He was staring at us and scratching at his neck like a teenager fighting acne. He frowned and asked, "What are you two doing?"

Tia placed her hands on her hips and pointed her snout at him with her ears pared back. "Well, nice of you to finally visit us again. We've been having all this fun without you."

Basil rolled his eyes. "You guys done yet? It's time to go home."

"Oh, all of a sudden you want to go back to Ly-lee's? I thought you liked it oh-so-much better here." A slight reptilian hiss laced her voice.

"It's better than staying around with all these... people."

"Ly-lee's not done yet. So we're not leaving."

"Oh come on! That's not our stupid work, why do we have to stay?"

He shrieked when Tia clucked him on the forehead by the knuckle. He slunk back and turned away from her scowl, and he resumed scratching himself.

I pulled Tia away from him by the tail. "Be nice, guys," I said.

"I'll be nice once he does," Tia said. She snorted and projected a sharp click at Basil. "And would you stop scratching! You're going to peel your skin off!"

He was really at it. Since I last saw him, a pale blush infected his chin and neck, which turned a sickly purple when it mixed with the turquoise under his muzzle. He craned his head toward the ceiling to expose new areas to scratch, but it didn't seem enough to satisfy him. He bit his lips and contorted his face, and his tail twitched on the floor in frustration.

"You really should stop scratching," I said. "Your neck looks chafed. We can use some ointment."

I reached over and brushed his neck, and then recoiled in horror when the skin crumbled underneath my touch and a piece broke off. It left behind a broken hole with edges curled outwards like the aftermath of an implosion. The piece of skin fluttered into my hand, and I shook it off and ground my palms into my pants until it burned.

Tia nosed the piece of skin and frowned. "Now look what you did. I told you. Stop scratching!"

"It itches!" Basil shrieked. He clawed at the broken spot and flayed skin pieces everywhere, but then Tia grabbed his wrists and restrained him. He whined, still wriggling his fingers to reach the itch.

Tia examined the patch and then snorted. "Your new scales haven't even fully grown in yet. It must be that junk you put on your neck. Told you that stuff was bad." She turned to me. "Looks like we're going to have to go now, Ly-lee. I have to take care of Basil. Again. You'll be all right, yeah?"

I nodded, my eyes still fixated on Basil's cracking skin. With his hands still detained, the poor lizard arched his head down and tried to gnaw at the spot. He retreated and whimpered when his sister hissed at him. He was dragged by the wrists out the lab while his body trembled under malice of an ungratified itch.

"Don't work too hard, Ly-lee, it's not good for you!" Tia called out before they left.

It was nine in the evening when we stowed enough data away to make leaving work remotely acceptable. Even such, it would have been a faux pas for the urbane sorts of Secondary to do so and most stayed. Not for an uncultured simpleton like me though. Because in all honesty, no amount of overtime in the world could coax me to entertain at the Bunny's lovely shindig any longer.

"Leaving already, Lyle?" a coworker asked when I packed up my station. His vision didn't stray from his keyboard.

"Yeah, I'm done here. Tetra doesn't pay me enough for this bullshit."

"Blame Kanid Technologies. They're the reason Tetra's running scared and trying to run the blitz, seeing how the hostile takeover play failed. You do remember when they tried that buyout, right?"

"Can't say that I have, no."

"You should really pay more attention to your own company, really. That's what the hell they pay you for."

"Fine then. They don't pay me enough to care. Besides, I got a couple of little demons back home to take care of."

"Lucky bastard. It's like a party back home, eh?"

"Every day is a party with these guys."

"Then you're already ahead of the jeffe. All this business made him miss a big one today. Poor guy."

"Eh, forgive me if I don't shed a tear. I'm sure he has like a couple dozen more, anyway. I wonder where he finds them all?"

"'Hoes Are Us,' probably. I heard they have a buy-three-get-one whore special going on. He probably has some frequent-customer discounts too. You know, that asshole could probably share the wealth a little."

"That sounds a bit commie, buddy."

He leaned back and stretched his arms. "It's not like Uncle Sam's capitalism got me anywhere, fucking rabbits."

I patted his shoulder goodbye and left my colleagues to the deal with the boutique. I got aboard the late train (SX16, who was not nearly as attractive as her sister, sad to say) and departed to attend to my charges. You really do realize how many valuable excuses you can synthesize when life saddled you with responsibilities.

---

"Ooooh... that feels good, do it again."

That odd moaning made me pause in front of my door with my hand hovering over entry panel. For a moment, I thought my tiredness had brought me to the door to another tenant's room because someone was having way too much fun in there. I double-checked the door number. 4-15A, my room. The only thing that was supposed to be behind this door was a couple of lizard siblings doing who-knows-what.

I slid the door open and found Basil laying on his stomach on the carpet with his with his limbs splayed out and his eyes closed. His sister was straddling his lower back. She arched forward and clutched at his back, pressing his body onto the floor and eking out pale moans. Basil's tongue slipped out between rows of teeth and lolled in panting pleasure. Only the small table lamp illuminated the room with a copper hue that shined their scales like miniature reflectors. Towels stolen from the bathroom piled around them.

I slid the door closed and watched Tia knead her claws into her brother's glistening hide. She stretched and climbed her hands along his spine and massaged his neck and shoulders. Her hands left a tickle behind his neck, to Basil's moaning content, and they reached down to start over. Neither noticed me.

"Evening, guys," I said. Tia looked up in mid-stretch, and she smiled and clicked her tongue. I sat down on the couch. "Having fun tonight?"

"He's having fun, all right, making me peel off his old scales for him," Tia said. She removed her claws from Basil, to his whining protests, and wiped her hands with a towel. A translucent patch of skin fluttered from her hand to the floor and settled among piles of similar pieces.

She reached over and took a bottle of mineral oil from the table and squirted a bit onto her hands. She rubbed the oil into her palms and leaned over Basil again. Stretched over him, she nestled her chin over his frill and started polishing his sides.

"This is all your fault, Ly-lee," she said.

"My fault? For what?"

"Because of you, my brother had an excuse to make me give him a massage. He's not even supposed to shed his skin yet." She sat up slapped Basil's side. "Eh? It's true, isn't it, little brother?"

Basil moaned and peeked open one of his eyes. He retracted his tongue and parted his jaws just enough to speak. "She gives the best messages ever," he said. He paused to sigh. "She should give one to you, Ly-lee."

Smiling, Tia brought her hands up and wiggled her oil-glinting fingers for me to see. "Everyone says I give good massages. Want to see if they're right? I'll do you next."

"Nah, I'm fine," I said.

"You sure? You look tired. A massage would be good for you."

"She's right, you look like you need one," Basil said with his eyes shut.

I waved the idea away. "No, really. I'm fine. Thank you, though."

She shrugged. "Well, okay then. I owe you one then. Whenever you want it." She dried her hands with another towel and tapped on Basil's forehead. "As for you, yours is done."

Basil whimpered. "Already? It hasn't even been that long."

"It's been an hour already. You're done."

"But--"

He shrilled when she pinched his thigh.

"Clean up your scales and throw them away," Tia said. "Don't let Ly-lee to clean up the mess for you. I'm going to take a bath. Then, I'll finish that letter."

She patted his sides a few times and rose up. She brushed loose scales from her body, pecked her brother's forehead with a kiss, and left for the bathroom. Basil, his limp body still refusing to acknowledge that its hour of bliss was over, turned to his side and blinked at the piles of shed skin. Eventually, he stretched with a hand to reach them, but his clawtips fell short. He groaned and rolled onto his back.

"Feeling good?" I asked.

He twisted his head along the floor and looked at me upside-down. He yawned and curled his lips in satisfaction. "Oh yeah. Never better."

"That's good. That's good." I turned on the rest of the lights and held in a chuckle at the sight of Basil's pale pink skin. "You're fine, right? No problems or anything"

He closed his eyes. "Yep. No problemos."

"All right. It's been a rough day. I'm going to bed. Don't stay up too late, yeah?"

Basil hummed an acknowledgment, and I retired to the bedroom. I plopped down onto my bed and reeled from the pain of my spine twisting itself like limp spaghetti. But I was okay. The knowledge that my lizard friends were okay was enough for me. I supposed that even an Isian lizard needed a little downtime now and then, and I left it at that for the night. Just so long as everyone found their happy and carefree selves. Sleep came as easily as my ignorance.

Chapter 3.2

"What's wrong with him?"

He was the seventh person to ask me that morning, to say nothing of Lord-knows how many from the past two days. I told the guy the same thing I told the others: "He's just having a bad day."

"Day hasn't even started yet," he replied.

"Never too early to start being productive."

Both of us turned around and looked at the lizard in question. He sat with to his sister at the far end of the car with rows of empty seats buffering them from the rest of the passengers. His head rode still against the sway of the train, and he stared back at us with a gaze that could freeze the sun into cinder. We quickly turned back and huddled. The rest of the passengers kept to themselves as they shuddered from the cold in the heated cabin.

"No seriously," my trainmate whispered. "What the hell is up with him?"

"I honestly don't know."

"Aren't you supposed to take care of him? Shouldn't you know these things?"

"He only does this when he leaves home, and he won't tell me why either."

He bowed his head down and rubbed his hands together. He bent his head to his left and stole another peek back before snapping back against his seat and coughing. "Goddamn. You know what everyone's saying right?"

"Saying what?"

He sighed and leaned in close to me.

"You know, people are getting kind of freaked out. They're worried about him."

"Hey, I'm worried about him too. I don't know what's gotten into him."

"No, no, you don't understand. Not worried about him. You know? Like, worried about what he might do looking like that. You get it, right?"

I took a minute. "Shit, what the hell are you talking about? He's not going to do anything, what's wrong with you people?"

He motioned for me to quiet down. "Remember that guy in General Carbide a few years back? The guy who shot up his department and killed twenty people? For weeks, the psycho was just like that, not talking to anyone and looking like he was going to murder something. Except no one said shit. And a bunch of people died because no one had the guts to. You get it?"

"Jesus Christ."

"Look, I'm not saying the lizard's going to do anything, all right?" Again, he looked back to rear seats. "But I'm saying that this sort of thing gets people worried. I can't blame them, you know? And worried people do stupid things. You're their guardian, right? That's your job to look after this sort of stuff. You know, for your own good."

I grunted at the notion and waved him off. "Yeah, thanks a lot for your concern. That's something I really need to hear."

"Just saying, pal."

I dropped the grievance, and we rejoined the rest of the car in its silence. The guy had a point. I found myself in the front alongside my fellow Homo sapiens for a reason, and it wasn't because I was in a sociable mood. I couldn't sit near the creature that lurked the rear of the train, that same beast that looked as if it was about one tic shy away from sinking its teeth into someone's succulent trachea.

Next to the menace on the inside seat was a sound-asleep Tia.

Basil's attitude had gotten freakishly worse over the past few days. The first time with the itchy scales was him merely being a disagreeable tease. The next day, he became an old and crusty curmudgeon. A few days into it, and he became deadly. All the humanity a lizard like him could glean from the world broke apart and flung into the winds, leaving behind an animalistic shell. I didn't know what to make of it. It went beyond just a simple stroke of grumpiness that's the natural order of life. It was something primal. He radiated a malice that burned everyone around him, and people, naturally, started avoiding him. I couldn't blame them.

For me, the day before was my last stand. I tried to take my usual spot next to them. "Hi Basil," I said. "How's it going? Are you fine today? Nice weather isn't it? Does the train to seem to run rougher today? How was the last Iron Maiden?" Basil's half of the conversation consisted of him staring at me through constricted eyelids, his jaws parted enough to remind me of the rows of sharp teeth he possessed. A furrowed expression draped a head that hadn't been petted for days. I tried to peer past him over to Tia in a search of solidarity, but he moved his head to block my sight. The jagged, rough clicking he gave forced me over the edge, and I left for another seat. This morning, I didn't even try to sit next to them.

Close to Summit, I took another a look back. Tia was still asleep underneath her brother's shadow, and Basil himself looked at me with piercing eyes. I quickly twisted back into my seat. No one dared to move off their seats when the train stopped. We all sat staring into the seat in front of us and waited for the patting of claws to gallop past us. Tia yawned as she sauntered through the aisle. She smiled and waved at me when she made to my row, and I returned it. Basil, trailing close to her, speared me with a gaze of daggers. I shoved my hand into my lap and pressed against the seat.

It wasn't until the pair hopped off the train and pressed into the courtyard before anyone had the nerve to exit.

A few daredevils--or ill informed--pressed their luck with the Isians. They tried to say hello them. "Hey guys," or, "Hi there," and maybe, "How's it doing?" Dangerous fighting words. Basil grunted and clicked his tongue rapidly at them, and most got the hint and hurried off. One particular knucklehead, however, wasn't playing with a full set. He knelt down and roughed his hands on Basil's head and neck, like bum petting a mad dog. Basil furrowed his eyes and his clicks became sharper and more insistent.

"Hey there, little guy," the idiot cooed. He reached over and tried to pet Tia.

Basil grunted and thrust himself between them. He hunched down, bared his teeth, and hissed. He swept his tail across the ground and blew up dust. The stupid fucker still tried to reach past him.

I burned through my daily supply of empathy for my fellow man just to run out and grab his hands away. A confused look overtook his face. He looked at me like a dumbass caught in headlights.

"Don't you have something to give to Aimee?" I said, gripping his hands away from the hissing Isian.

"What?" he said. "Oh right! Almost forgot about their lunch."

Tia's perked her head up from behind her brother when she heard the words. "Oh! Whatcha get us?"

"I got you--"

"It's a surprise!" I interrupted. I pulled the guy up and shoved him toward the building. "Yes, a big, big damned surprise. Right? Go, Mr. Lunch Surprise!"

The guy paced himself away from us and looked back every other step. I encouraged him along with shooing motions and thanked God when the dumbass finally made it inside. I looked back to the Isians. They were gone. Beyond my sight, I heard distinct Isian hisses slithering through the air. I sighed. One down, about two hundred more to go.

I later found them huddled on Aimee's desk with their rumps planted on the counter and their tails undulating behind them. Aimee was balancing a couple of food items on her hands and presented them with the smile of a showbot.

"And here is some creamy, authentic Gouda that someone just brought in. It will complement the black forest ham very nicely."

Driblets of saliva slid from the Isians' hanging tongues and onto the desk. One of them leaned in and absorbed the scent of gourmet cuisine through flared nostrils. It was Basil.

"So let me get this right," he said. "You're supposed to put this," he pointed to the cheese, "with the ham?"

"That is what I am suggesting," Aimee said.

"How does that work?" Tia asked. The crinkled cheese cellophane that wrapped the Gouda rustled when she poked it. "I mean, it's... ew!"

"It smells pretty good," Basil said.

Tia moved her head close and nudged her brother away to take a whiff for herself. She took a hefty breath in that soured her face. "No. No it doesn't. You have no idea what you're talking about. No, no, we're not eating it with the ham."

Basil fidgeted and then pointed at the cheese. "Well, if you don't want it, can I have--"

Before he could finish, Tia snatched the ham and cheese and ran off with the item tucked under her arms. He looked on like a lost lamb. Aimee rubbed his back.

"I saved the Basilisk Special just for you," she said. She brought out another cheese wheel from underneath her desk and placed it in front of him.

Chirping happily, he planted messy licks on her face and ran after his sister with cheese in tow. Aimee wiped her metal face with a cloth rag and brought it back to a polished, saliva-free shine. I came to the desk.

"Ah, Mr. Ivano!" she said when she saw me. "Long time no talk. How can this humble servant of Tetra assist you today?"

"This servant can get me some of that tasty-looking cheese," I said.

"Oh, I am terribly sorry. But those materials are for authorized personnel only. I am afraid that you do not qualify."

"Well, how about those egg rolls then?" I pointed to a trio of rolls that formed a pyramid on a white platter. They sat conspicuously on a stack of documents. "Surely I'm qualified for those, right?"

"No."

"Dammit Aimee, it's not like the twins are going to eat them anyway. Lemme have just one."

"Those are for me."

"What? No."

She fished the top roll between a thumb and index finger and dangled the crispy cylinder over her upturned face. She opened her mouth and, after turning slightly to wink at me, dropped it down. The hapless roll disappeared into her mechanical maw in one fell gulp. I gawked, and she realigned her head and smiled a defiant "I-told-you-so" smirk.

"Oh god, Aimee. Oh geez!" I shielded my eyes from her, barely able to suppress a laugh. "You're going to make Mr. Aimee a very happy bot, someday."

"It's an important skill to master," she said.

"Yeah, well, I haven't learned that one yet. I haven't even learned how to take care a bunch of lizards."

"Oh, nothing to worry about. You have been doing admirably. They look fantastic."

"Look fantastic?" I leaned in close to her. "In case you haven't noticed, one of them doesn't look at all fantastic. Unless you mean 'fantastically nasty.'"

Aimee planted an elbow on the desk and propped her head up on her hand. "You know, I have been hearing people mumbling about that sort of thing. But I do not believe it myself."

"What's to believe? Just look at him, he looks nastier than my grandpa after my uncle's funeral. Everyone's thinking the same thing. There's something wrong with Basil, and the worse thing is that I have no idea what the hell it is."

"He seems cheerful to me. Seems to rather like the cheddar I gave him."

"Well... I don't know. That was kind of weird, actually. Maybe it's just you. But believe me, he's nasty to everyone else. Even me!"

"Have you tried to talking to Ms. Neuman? She is bound to have some insight."

"Arlene? No. Haven't gotten around to it." Haven't gotten around to give her an excuse to accuse me of not meeting the Isians' needs and do appropriately horrible things. Horrible things to me.

"Good, then you can do so personally at lunch."

"What?"

"She contacted Summit this morning with a message for you. She said she wanted to give that lunch she owes you today, if was feasible for you. I took the initiative to say that it was and that you would meet her this afternoon."

She pulled out a Tetra-emblazoned stationery from a stack on the desk and handed it to me. Handwritten in perfect monospace beneath it was a note: "Ms. Neuman is engaged with Mr. Ivano at noon. Location is Rosaria restaurant, 194 E Hampton Blvd. She will pick him up personally."

I stared at the note for a long while before saying, "Thanks, Aimee."

"You are very welcome, Mr. Ivano."

Her obligation to me satisfied, she smiled and returned to her computer, leaving me to fend for myself. There's nothing like anticipating a date with a certain impassioned biologist to set one's day into overdrive.

---

Mark had, as usual, appropriated his distinctive half-shouting outrages right next to my ear.

"Goddamn things! How the hell is a guy supposed to get any work done here? Goddamn fucking animals!"

He stood his ground next to me and stared down his adversary at the foot of the stairs to the arena. The opposition was hunching down in the pit and glaring back with his jaw parted and tail swaying to the rhythm of a hunting heart. I had to dig my soles into the floor to steady myself against Mark's shaking of the back of my seat.

"Dammit Lyle, do something about him!" he yelled at me as if I was some mystic lizard guru.

"Do what? And why?"

"Him! I need to use the fucking projector and that goddamned thing is blocking my way."

"Just go around him then? Use another path down?"

He bent the backrest down and shook the chair until it squealed, causing me to mistype a value and crash the simulation. "No, no, it doesn't work like that," he insisted. "That asshole just follows me and tries to block me out. Look at him, look!" He trembled a purple-veined finger toward the pit. "Look at that motherfucker!"

Basil arched his back and puffed out his frill. A deep hiss echoed through the lab, a not-too-subtle warning served to those who would dare disturb the treasure that he guarded beyond: the holo-platform, which was unused except as a lounger for Tia to lie on with her head cradled on a pillow of Gouda. Mark pounded down the chair down a peg and broke the pneumatics, dooming me to an eternity of staring underneath the desk.

"See, look at him!" he yelled. "That fucker wants me dead. Just look at those eyes. Those goddamn eyes! Those are the eyes of a cold-blooded killer. 'I'm going to murder you' eyes. Not if I get you first, you goddamn motherfucker, you hear! You ain't getting Mark Ellis!"

"He's not going to kill you, you goddamn idiot." I gripped the desk's edge and pulled myself up to see my screen. "Why would he waste his time on that? Just leave him alone and you'll be fine."

"No, you don't get it Lyle. You just don't know. Trust me, those eyes aren't things that go away without a bullet right through each of them. Twice." He straightened up and yelled to the arena. "And I'm not afraid, I'll do it too!"

I pushed the chair out of the way and resigned to standing. "Right, you go on ahead then. I've got work to do."

"Yeah." He slunk down into my seat and wheeled behind me to avoid Basil's tracking gaze. "Then, You don't mind talking to him, right? You know, so it doesn't have to get to that. It gets kinda messy, you know?"

"I'll think about it."

"Whenever, buddy. Just whenever."

He cupped his hands around his face and slumped into the chair. In the contest of the alpha males, the victor is determined through strength, wit, will, patience, and teeth, elements in which Mark was decisively deficient. Whatever, I couldn't spare a care for the world. I had other, graver concerns, and it was my time to be selfish. Sorry, Mark.

I mean, lunch with Arlene? At some fancy restaurant with some unpronounceable foreign name? She was serious? Jesus Christ. It had completely slipped my mind. I didn't even have time to prepare! I wasn't even dressed up. Not even a tie! Lunch with Arlene. Gee, thanks Aimee.

I was standing and keying random characters into the system like a well-mannered work-droid. When was the last time I went out on a date? College, I think, with someone from the physics department. Nice girl. It didn't go much beyond dates to the campus cafeteria and library, and maybe a fling here or there in the bedroom when she felt frisky. You know, I had forgotten how hard that stuff was back in the day. Maybe that's the reason why I stopped cold-turkey. Yeah, that was it. I was looking out for my health and well-being, is all. Living a healthy and prosperous life was such an understated virtue, and I was merely living ahead of the curve. Exceptional. Pah, relationships! Been there, done that, had my fill, time to move on.

I tapped through the bright red error screens the system suggested I interpret.

Just lunch right? Nothing amazing about lunch with a woman. I took Mom out for lunch plenty of times. Same thing. No big deal. Then, why was I tittering in my shoes?

I jumped when something poked my sides and jerked myself away from the tunnel vision of the screen. I got one startled look at Basil and fell onto my broken seat, which started rolling away from the lizard. He cocked his head to the side and peered at me curiously.

"Aren't you going to go eat?" he asked.

I looked around the room. Caught up in my own stupor, I hadn't noticed the lab had vacated. I rolled the seat back to my station and checked the screen. "11:53" one of the interface panels read. Appetites called to the SE-2 engineers early today. Funny enough, despite the lunch hour creeping closer, I realized I didn't feel hungry.

"Ah, just finishing up some last things," I said, pulling myself back to my station. "Why don't you guys go and eat without me?"

Basil balked. "No. We're not going out there with all those... people. Besides, Tia's too busy trying to take pictures of herself." He ejected a shot of annoyance from his nostrils. "She's going to send them to that stupid friend of hers at the zoo."

I lifted up and took a peek at the arena. Sure enough, she was posing for the lab's optical scopes that angled out-of-spec to face her. A burst of images swelled on the projector after each shot, which she reviewed them one at a time. She then discarded the bunch and retook them with a slightly different pose.

"I see," I said. "That's nice of her. Those are good pictures."

"No one cares, especially not that stupid friend," Basil said. "I don't get it, I don't know why she's so friendly with him. He's just lucky that the zoo is far away from here. Just one less thing for me to worry about." He trailed and stared off into the distance as if pondering some deep metaphor. "Anyway, when you're in the cafeteria, could you get me some of those pot pies? I love them."

"Sorry, guy. I'm actually going to go eat with Arlene today. You're going to have to get it yourself."

An excited female voice echoed from the center of the room. "You're eating Arlene? Really? Oh!"

Clawtips clacked up the floor, and Basil rasped his tongue. He leaned against my chair and slid me away from my station just as Tia's head propped itself above the partitions.

"Did I hear right?" she said. "Is Ly-lee really going to eat with Arlene?"

"Yeah, I guess," Basil said.

She clapped her hands together and clicked excitedly. "Oh, that's so great! Ly-lee's going to out to eat with Arlene! How wonderful!"

"Just great."

He pushed me further away.

"How exciting! Isn't this exciting? It's very exciting!"

"Very exciting."

"Oh, oh! I have to take a picture of both of you, Ly-lee. So we can save the moment and stuff."

Basil hissed, the sharpness of which compelled me to grip edge of the chair. He kept me hostage to the chair and pushed me to the stairs. He pulled me up and pushed me up the steps. "Right, right," he said while his sister kept babbling on. We reached the doors and he pushed me out. "Lunch with Arlene. Great! Why don't you go now, Ly-lee? Go and eat, already!"

With his icy blue eyes frozen on me, I was only happy to oblige. I took a quick glimpse back into the lab and saw Tia waving goodbye in wide excited arcs. "Tell me how good the food is!" she called out. I stepped back, and the door met close to my nose with a slam, its servos whining in mechanical pain. I met the security bot that came to investigate with a nonchalant nod and went to the lobby.

The PA rang with a chime and announced it was noon. Mark was milling in the lobby with a man-sized sandwich (probably stitched together from the carcasses of three or four lesser sandwiches). He motioned me over.

"Hey Lyle, get over and get some of this. It actually doesn't taste like it's made of puke."

"Eating out today."

"Yeah? What fancy-ass place you going to?"

"Some Italian place or something. I think."

"You think?"

"Well, I'm kind of going out to eat with someone."

"Yeah? Not one of the guys here, I hope. They stuff you with the bill all the time, damn assholes."

"No, it's--"

A sharp Hey Lyle! cut me off. We both turned to meet the call and saw Arlene waving from Aimee's desk. Marked gagged on his mouthful and spat out a crumb of bread. He pounded on his chest to keep from retching the remainder, swallowed, and gasped.

"Holy fucking hell!"

"Yeah, it's her."

He smiled a goofy grin at me, which gave way to a low-pitched chuckle. He slapped my shoulders and shook it. "Goddamn, Lyle. God-damn! My man, I knew you could tame that ice-bitch."

"It's just lunch."

"You know what's the difference between 'just lunch' and a chick in your bed? Three shots and a dick, my friend. You listen to that. Hell, you know what? Take the rest of the day off and do it right. God knows you need it."

"Will I still get paid?"

"Hell no."

I waved him goodbye and met with Arlene at the desk. She smiled, which I took as a sign that I was already off to a good start. "Ready to go, Lyle?" she asked. I nodded, and we were away. Just a platonic lunch at a fancy restaurant.

---

The main road entrance to Summit was someplace I wasn't familiar with. I never took a good look at it before. It surprised me when I discovered Tetra had commissioned a gigantic lawn ornament to tower over the mouth of the main entryway. This being Tetra, it was just giant love-letter to itself: a reproduction of those tangled triangles of the company's trademark, gilded in a golden sheen that swallowed lesser insignias. On the facets of the fixture, Arlene's car wasn't too proud to reflect through its yellow haze.

I felt nervous riding inside car, and it was because it was a nervous car to ride in. Everything inside brandished themselves in black and silver with metallic ornaments and styling. The flowing curves bonded together in a sort of chic mechanical modernism. The interior ate the bright noon sunlight before it could disturb the car's luxurious gloom. An odor reeked in the cabin that smelled of chemical-cured rubber and synthetics, the kind of industrial smell that clung to your sinuses long after you left. I huddled close to my seat.

The only noise that sounded inside the car was the groaning squeaks from the leather seat that my rump wormed in. To took a few minutes of squirming before my ass warmed the material to a sit-able temperature, but that didn't make the car any easier to ride in. I kept conscious of my efforts to keep from brushing against the upholstery because every errant fingerprint would depreciate the car by $700 or so.

I attempted to make out the model of the car before I stepped into it, but all I had to work with was some abstract symbol that kissed its hood. With a car such as this, an abstract logo was one's only clue to its heritage, a mystery left to those not already in the know. The unprivileged and uncivilized were doomed to a lifetime of want and wonder. I didn't ask Arlene what kind of car it was.

So I guess if you're a biologist, you could commute in a sexy vehicle like this. Come to think of it, I was in entirely the wrong profession.

Arlene geared the car into the connector linking to a nearby freeway, not bothering to slow down when inciting the car to devour the circular ramp.

"I'm sorry for being so abrupt with this," she said. "I hope it wasn't a problem for you?"

"It's fine," I said. "I didn't have anything else planned."

"That's good. I've just been so swamped the past few weeks, and the only reason I could do this now is because one of my appointments unexpectedly canceled this morning. I'm just glad you could make it."

Lesser vehicles were but blurry dimples marking the rear horizon. On the fast line, we overtook several metro trains operating on the median rails and attracted curious gawks from their passengers. Summit being close enough to our destination, you wonder what was the point in speeding there. I guess if you owned a sports car, it was a statutory offense of the Spiffy Motorist Code not to. The traffic thickened just as we pierced into the heart of downtown.

"God, I hate this road," Arlene mumbled. Out in the distance, a cancerous mass of vehicles piled underneath the shadows of the skyscrapers--a deadly mess of cars, blaring horns, and rage-filled motorists. I gripped into my seat as Arlene punched the car through the traffic. She wove past the stragglers and spiked right into an exit. Traffic lights at the off-ramp finally stopped her race driving sensibilities. Back on the freeway, the control beacons for all the cars flickered on in blue unison along the long string of traffic--we exited just in time before the traffic computers could wrestle control of the car away from her.

While waiting for cross traffic to shuffle its turn past us, she released the wheel and rested her hands on her lap. She turned to me. "So, Lyle, I haven't been able to really talk to you for a while. How's it going?"

"It's been good. As good as working in my department can be, anyway. I don't think I've actually slept in the last month."

"Yeah. It's not any better at Wyvern. It's hell right now. I love working there, but it's just nice to have time to eat out once in a while. A nice, quality place with nice, quality food, you know?"

"Sure." I didn't really know.

"I've heard this place is pure quality, and I've been dying to try it out. I love Italian."

She peered through the traffic like she was anticipating the light to turn, but it remained red. She took off her glasses and folded them into a padded eyeware compartment on the roof before, and then re-gripped the wheel.

"You sure it's safe to drive without your glasses?"

"My glasses? Oh, they're not for my eyesight. I just get tired of wearing them after a while. There's an extra spot there if you want to put yours away too."

"Mine are real. I can't see a damn without them."

"Really? You never corrected your eyes?"

"Nope. Glasses are cheaper."

"I've never met someone who had actual vision problems. You know, we have a visions lab at Wyvern. If you stop around headquarters sometime, one of the techs could fix them up for you. Free for friends of the institute."

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind."

She took a sharp left into the boulevard's overpass when the light turned green.

Riding through the lights and sounds of the heart and soul of the city, I felt a bit embarrassed. To me, most everything here was unfamiliar, even though I lived in the damned city for years. I locked my head to the passenger-side window, gazing out onto the spectacle like a child lost in the world. High-powered businessmen and women in skin-cutting suits mingled with ladies dressed in sequins walking their dogs in strollers. Street vendors hassled from the sidewalks and grizzled street survivalists, looking dignified in their woolen caps and wizened beards, slept in the corners. The glow of signs and advertisements bathed the place in a perpetual brightness even when we slunk underneath the shadows of skyscrapers. The cabin's seal wasn't enough to stop the bustle from penetrating as a soft muffle, but it thankfully kept out the smells I imagined lurked outside.

Maybe I didn't come here because of the buildings. Big and tall and imposing, exactly how your big real estate magnates like them. But they all ended up looking familiar. You saw the same concrete and the same clear windows and the same three basic colors (gray, blackish-gray, and grayish-black). Each building tried to scream "individuality!" with maybe a pair of roaring lions guarding the entrance or an "artsy" sculpture that looked like something M.C. Escher vomited out after eating a geometry textbook. I paid no attention to them. I had Summit's Spire for my self-important high-rise wankery, and that was enough. I'm a monogamous man.

"Oh, that must be it," Arlene said and pointed a plain office complex in the distance. As we neared it, though, a passionate shade revealed itself on one of its corners. The color slathered themselves on panels that clothed over the building's concrete. Above, they wore a checkerboard awning like a cap, which covered over about a dozen tables in the open air. The tables each possessed a pair of black chairs but were too petite to support two actual people. Large lettering forming "Rosaria" overlooked them all, crafted in a flowing script that begged for a few squints to decipher.

Arlene parked on the curb next to a valet staffed with a human and a robot. The human valet immediately crossed over to open the driver-side door and offered his hand to help Arlene out from her seat. I had to see myself out, contorting my body in odd ways to extricate myself from the car and nearly kissing the curb with my knees.

"You keep good care of her, yeah? She's my baby," Arlene said to the valet when he planted himself into the driver's seat with a goofy grin. He gave a thumbs-up and pulled out to the street.

It was a pretty swank place. The windows had a one-way tint to the outside, which offered a bright view out to the world while protecting patrons from reality. Inside was your typical hip roost that you would expect fashionable twenty-somethings to perch in town. At least, what I assumed a hip roost to look. You know, marble countertops, vague lighting that made food hard to see, people wearing hats that looked "European," music consisting of one instrument and no melodies, and the whole thing. I could imagine that it was the identical to any other fashionable eatery, except the waitstaff wore poofy suits and everything smelled like garlic.

The host greeted us when we walked in. "Ah, bella donne!" he said, obviously referring to Arlene. "A pretty lady for a pretty day at a pretty restaurant. How may I help you? Seat for one? I have the perfect place for you, a beautiful seat for a beautiful woman, eh?"

He sounded like something from a Learn to Speak Italian video.

Arlene giggled and said, "No, for a table for two, please."

"Eh? Two?" The host looked around and shot a wide-eyed glance at me. He pointed to me and asked, "Two?"

"Yes, two."

He stared at me a for a few moments, and then he shook his head and poked a few bits into a terminal. "Ah, si. Two." He motioned us to follow him.

He led to a corner of the restaurant where the couples tables lived. We got a small table that sat underneath a replication of The Last Supper projected on a luminescent screen on the wall. The virtual painting throbbed and ebbed under multicolored spotlights that danced to some head-throbbing beat. On the table itself, a ceiling-attached lamp illuminated a charcoal map of the Mediterranean printed on the tablecloth. The host pulled out one of the high seats and led Arlene onto it by the hand. I took my own place underneath the Apostle Judas.

"The waiter will be with you," said the host after handing us menus. He looked back at me and shook his head. I could hear him mumble "two" when he left us.

Actual hard menus that you could fondle, some class! I was so used to ordering from a computer I almost forgot how these things worked. You had to scan your eyes manually to the next item. Since this was a fancier restaurant, the menu's list had no pictures and no descriptions to whet the appetite. It made itself even more difficult considering there wasn't a lick of comprehensible English anyone on the damned thing. I saw letters of the alphabet that I recognized, but they jumbled together in a mess of made-up words.

"These all sound so delicious," Arlene said as she perused through her menu. She flipped the menu page over and gasped. "Oh! They have scallops, I haven't had good scallops in forever. So many good things."

I turned my menu to the same page. Nowhere in hell did I find the word "scallop" printed anywhere on that leaf. "Yep, the scallops sound good," I said.

"Would it make me a horrible person if I said I'm craving to eat scallops with gnocco fritto?"

"Of course not. I crave that all the time. Just this morning in fact." I thumbed through the menu to try to figure out what a "nocko freeto" was.

"So much I want to eat. If I only had a whole day! Ah, oh well." She tapped on an item on her menu. "I'll have to settle for this. Good old faithful."

"Yeah?"

I held up my menu to my face and tried to steal a look out of the corner of my eye. I figured I could get the same and not look like a complete fool, but I couldn't see what she tapped on. Fuck it.

"So, what are you getting?" I asked.

She closed her menu flat on the table. "I'm not telling."

"Why not?"

"Because, you're just going to laugh at me. Going to a nice restaurant and ordering the most ordinary dish in the world."

"No, really. What are you getting?"

Arlene laughed. "I'm slick to your game, Lyle. You go ahead and order the best thing you can. There's a lot of good stuff here and I don't want you to hold back because it's too expensive."

I pulled the menu up and crawled back through it like a hieroglyphics-studying archeologist searching for the pharaoh's sacred lasagna menu.

"So Lyle, how are you going along with the twins?"

"We've been getting along pretty well."

"I know that. Tia's been sending me messages on how 'awesome Ly-lee's place is' and 'how great Ly-lee is' and how she 'wishes she could stay with him forever' and everything. I'm asking if you are getting along with them."

"Oh. It's been good. I mean, there were a few problems in the beginning, but they've been behaving since."

"So, you don't have any problems with them? None at all?"

I thought about it and said, "No, no problems."

Arlene nodded. She picked up her purse and opened it on the table. "Good, good. I guess I don't have to tell you how much I disapproved of the idea of them staying with you. I know you mean well and it's nothing against you, but you weren't exactly qualified to take care of Isian lizards, you know? But I'm glad to be wrong. You're probably doing better than most of us could."

"Thanks. I try."

She pulled out a slip of paper from the purse and waved it to me. "I just got this approved this morning." She placed the sheet on the table and pushed it to me. "Here, take a look."

"What is it?"

"I managed to get you a compensation package for housing the twins. For food, housing, and miscellaneous expenses. The sheet has the amount they've set aside for you."

I pushed the paper back. "No, no. I can't take this. I'm not doing it for money. I'm just helping out friends, that's all."

"Just take a look at it," she said and slidS it back to me.

I hesitantly took the sheet, flipped it over, and nearly choked on my own spit. Holy fuck, the paper was a protected breeding ground for zeros! I haven't seen so many before in one place at one time. I had to pull my jaw from table and plant it back into my skull. "Is this thing broken? It's showing the wrong number."

"That's your monthly payment."

It would be a damn shame if I had a heart attack and died never having collected any of the money, because I felt like I was about to make good acquaintances with Mr. Cardiac Arrest right there. The slip fluttered away from my fingers and onto the table. Arlene confused my speechlessness as acceptance, saying, "Good, I'll try to get your payments as soon as possible."

I could only nod my head. God, why the hell couldn't have giant lizards invaded my life sooner?

Before I could come to my senses and mount another half-hearted protest, the waiter came. He asked Arlene for her order first. Her mouth opened to give it to him, but she stopped and glanced at me. She clamped her mouth shut and motioned the waiter down so she could whisper into his ear. The waiter nodded his head, and she chuckled.

"You don't think that's horribly boring?" she asked.

The waiter replied, "Not at all. We serve only the best here, there's no shame at all." He turned to me. "And for you, sir?"

I pulled my menu back to my face and raked through the items one last time in a futile effort to look informed. I marked out words that seemed difficult to say and left what I hoped I could pronounce in retarded Italian (and, optimistically, choose something that was edible). It didn't fucking help.

"Okay, I'll take the guh... guh-oo-chee? Guh-oo-chee dee, no. I mean, the funghi rip... rip-ee?"

The waiter gaped at me while Arlene looked on with a bemused expression. I took a deep breath and began again.

"Ah, none of those. This is the one I want, the osso..."

"Ossobuchi in vino," Arlene said before I could finish massacring the fine language.

"And one ossobuchi," said the waiter. He reclaimed the menus and left me to wallow in a pit of my own humiliation. Arlene smiled at me and didn't say anything. The waiter came back later with a pair of complementary drinks: bellowing glasses half-filled with some pungent red wine. I gulped it down like a lump of coal.

Arlene handled the stem of her glass and swished the liquid around a bit, and then settled her glass back down as it was. She tapped on the tablecloth and traced her finger across the map. Her finger brushed along the Mediterranean states in a wide circle and paused at each state so she could say its name. She continued with all the countries on the map and stopped on the middle of the cloth, where she just smiled.

"Italy," she said. "I've always wanted to go there."

"Doesn't everybody? It's only one of the most romantic places in the world and all that."

She gave a chuckle, a sort of apathetic laughter punctuated with a sigh. "You don't have to tell me. My honeymoon was supposed to be there."

The revelation took me aback. All this time, I haven't even considered the possibility. But it made sense. A smart, young women, you wouldn't think? I washed off the residue of wine in my mouth and sat up. Just a regular lunch out with a friend. People do it all the time.

"Oh, that's great," I said. "How was it? Worth the hype?"

"Ha! I wish." She slapped her palm against the table. "I said my honeymoon was 'supposed' to be there. I never got that far."

"What? The airline canceled your flight?"

"More like the groom canceled the wedding."

I slunk back down into my seat, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

She waved the apology away. "Don't worry about it. It was years ago, like an eternity. Nothing left to apologize for."

"What kind of person cancels a wedding after he commits? That's pretty goddamn low."

"A person that knows what he's getting into," Arlene said. She took a light, contemplating sip from her glass. "He knew. He knew it would be better to break my heart early before things got too complicated. He was a smart man."

"I don't understand. How was that a good thing? How can you not be angry at him?"

She shook her head and gestured her hands toward herself. "Look at me, Lyle. Does this look like a person that's able to commit to a long and loving relationship? I did eighteen-hour days at Wyvern, seven days a week at one point. I can't count how many times I've said 'No honey, I'm working late,' or 'Sorry dear, I'll have to catch dinner with you maybe tomorrow, Rho has the flu,' and everything else. Yeah, I was mad when he broke it off. I was furious, hated the world, hated him. I wanted to rip his damned throat out. But now I realize it wasn't fair for either of us. It was a good thing."

She drew another taste of wine and sighed. "I wouldn't have been a good wife. I was too absorbed with myself. He knew back then what I know just now. I was already married, married to myself and my work. Still am, I think. I guess my temper didn't help either. Pathetic, isn't it?"

"No, not all. There's nothing wrong with being independent and loving your work. I mean, I find that quality attractive in a woman," I said. Arlene looked at me with a upturned, curious brow, and I jerked back when I realized what I blurted. "Ah, I mean, I think it's a good quality for all people, you know? I mean, not just women or you or anything."

She settled her eyes down to the table. "Ah well. My fiancé was astute. He did both our lives a favor, even if I didn't see it back then. That's why I loved him, and why I can't be upset with him. Not anymore. I just hope he found someone that can make him happy." She chuckled, shook her head, and sipped her wine. She turned back up to me. "How about you, Mr. Don Giovanni? How's the lucky gals in your life?"

"'Lucky' isn't something you call the poor things that gets caught by me. Fortunately for the women in the world, I haven't had a bite in years."

"You can't catch or you just never bothered setting out the line?"

I shrugged.

"Well sir, whatever it is, you're in good company." She held up her wine for a toast, and I brought my empty glass up to meet it. "To the single life, Mr. Ivano."

I nodded, and she emptied her glass. After she settled the glass down, Arlene cradled her chin with one hand and crawled her fingers over the tablecloth with the other. She made wistful circles over Italy. "Someday Signorina Italia, I'll get you," she said, and continued tracing the tablecloth. I studied her hand and noticed she wore no wedding ring, a revelation that would've helped me a few minutes before. The waiter brought our meals.

"Buon appetito," he said and left.

I stole a look at Arlene's great entrée embarrassment while she patted a napkin over her lap. I wasn't prepared for it. "Spaghetti and meatballs?" I said incredulously. "Are you kidding? That's what you couldn't tell me about?"

She rubbed one of her cheeks with the back of her hand and looked down to her plate. Her cheeks flushed to match the tomato sauce, and she said, "I come all the way to a nice Italian place and I order the most stereotypical Italian dish in the world. To be fair, this is actually bucatini, not spaghetti. I think it holds the sauce and flavor better, honestly." She giggled when I gave her a mocking shake of the head. "Let me eat my pasta like the five-year-old I am and you enjoy your fancy ossobuchi, good sir."

I looked at my own plate and became disheartened. Disheartened and confused. A fist-sized square block of something sat on the plate, garnished with an assortment of inedible-looking materials and a single parsley snip. A green sauce oozed the piece like a moat. The pasta meal easily dwarfed the thing, even though I was sure they cost the same. Mindful of Arlene eagerly twirling pasta around her fork, I poked at the mysterious block with my own.

"Oh God, this is so good," Arlene said. She slurped in a mouthful and polished her lips of sauce. She speared one of the meatballs. "Look at this thing! It's the size of the moon!"

"Yeah, looks great," I said. I took a small bite of the ossobuchi. It was the strangest damn thing ever. It was greasy but light, and I couldn't feel the texture as it disintegrated in my mouth in a menagerie of interstitial juices. The thing felt like a mutant crossbreed of beef and cotton candy. I gulped the pellet down and wished I still had wine.

"How's your veal?" Arlene asked.

My fork clanked onto the plate. "This is veal?"

"Yeah, ossobuchi. Veal shanks. That's what you ordered."

Ah, the exquisite taste of misery. How wonderful Italian cuisine is! I coated my fork with the green goop and licked the nutrients off. Funny enough, I didn't feel that hungry anymore. In her own little pasta heaven, Arlene didn't notice. She pulled up the second of her gargantuan meatballs.

"Basil loves meatballs," she said. "I should order extras for him. There are two things that make him the happiest lizard in the world: cantaloupe and this."

Speaking of the devil. I sat the fork down and wiped my mouth off with the napkin. I took a moment to select the correct words from the "Don't Piss Off Arlene" dictionary.

"Hey, about Basil," I started.

"Um-hmm?" she mumbled with a mouthful. She swallowed before she spoke. "What about him?"

"He's been fine ever since they've been staying with me. I mean, happy and carefree just like his sister."

"Oh sure, that's great. I'm glad to hear that."

"But lately, he's been sort of... off. He's been a bit moody. He doesn't talk to anyone and seems like he's always upset. He hasn't told me anything, even when I ask if anything's wrong. I just hope that I haven't done something wrong or anything. I hope I'm not. Am I being too paranoid?"

Arlene stopped in mid-slurp and looked at me. She took in her mouthful, swallowed, dropped her fork onto the table, and wiped her mouth. I didn't take it as a good sign and braced myself.

"Tia," she said after a slight silence, "is she like this too?"

"No, she's fine. It's just Basil."

She stared out past me, her eyes shallow with thought. "What day is today?"

"The sixteenth. Why?"

She pulled up her purse and ripped it open, snapping the silver brackets off from the fastening. "Oh, God. Oh God, oh God!" she repeated. Her hands tore through her purse and flung bits and materials out from the bag. She pulled out a micro-com and tossed the purse to floor, which spilled out the rest of its contents.

"Christ, I'm such an idiot!" she said as hers fingers ran across the small screen. "Such a goddamn idiot!"

"What's going on? What's happening?"

"I've been so damned busy all this time and I completely forgot. What hell is wrong with me? How can I forget this!"

Her eyes shut closed, and, after a moment's reflection, she slapped the device down on the table. The unsettled cackling of plates and glasses clashed against her sigh.

I hesitated, wondering if I should disturb her, and then asked her what was wrong again. She placed her chin on her hands and breathed in. "Tia's in estrus," she said.

"What?"

"Estrus. She's in heat. You know, when a female becomes fertile?"

I shook my head and waved her to stop. "Yeah, I know what it is, but what the hell does that have to do with Basil?"

"Basil is... well, he's a bit protective. Every time his sister gets into heat, he has this urge to shield her from other males."

"'Shield her from other males?' You're kidding me?"

"Nope. He just feels like he has to protect his sister from unwanted suitors, that's all. It's kind of cute, actually. I mean, if you had a sister that you loved and cared for, you'd probably do the same, right?"

"We're all humans! This doesn't make any sense."

"It's one of his personality quirks. He just ends up taking a bit far regardless of species. I don't think he can help it, honestly. It's probably the pheromones. Beem doing it since adolescence."

I sat back and absorbed the information. A big lizard goes around and threatens everyone with a look that says he was going to tear out a throat or three, and it's all because he was freaking about his sister's period? Sure, why not? It wasn't that much weirder than everything else from the last few months.

"Okay, fine," I said. "What can we do about it, then? We can't continue on business if he keeps this up."

"Oh, it's harmless. No one should feel threatened by him."

"Well, everyone is."

She shook her head. "Isians have a variety of vocalization and body language to express themselves. It's very subtle. He may look angry when he does this, but he never actually is. It's just posturing. It's not like he hisses. That's when you really know they're upset."

I didn't mention anything else.

Arlene searched around the table and cursed when she saw her purse on the floor. She got off her chair and began collecting its contents. "Anyway, that's why we usually keep Tia on hormonal inhibitors," she said. "But with everything that's been happening lately, I completely forgot about it. She must have hit proestrus on the seventh. I'm not going to hear the end of it from Natalia."

The seventh--the day we went to the zoo.

She gathered her belongings, stood, and cursed again when she tried to close the purse and discovered the clasps were missing. She rubbed her forehead with her palm and sighed. "I'm sorry, Lyle. I'm going to have to cut our lunch short. I have to get back and start making new arrangements to take care of this. Forgive me?"

"It's no problem, I understand," I said, secretly thanking God it was over.

"In the meantime, just give the twins some space. Make sure people in Summit do too."

"Everyone?"

"Everyone with a Y chromosome, anyway."

"How about Tia? I mean, to take care of her. Anything special or something? This is kind of new for me."

Arlene smiled. "We've been doing this for eons, Lyle. Don't worry about her, she'll be fine." She pulled some paper bills from her purse and placed them on the table. "Here, this should pay for the meal and a cab back to Summit."

I tried tp ush the money back. "No, no, you don't have to. I'll take care of--"

"You take care of the Isians until I get back, okay? I'm counting on you."

"But the money--"

She leaned in and pecked me on the cheek. "Bye Lyle," she said. She hurried out the restaurant.

I sat alone with a piece of veal, a half-plate of pasta, and a bunch of money, just like nature intended. I stabbed my veal with a fork and watched in child-like glee as the foamy meat held it upright. The waiter came on a courtesy visit to the table.

"Did your partner leave?" he asked.

"Yeah." I gazed onto my plate and deliberated whether I should make a second go at it. I turned to the waiter. "Say buddy, you wouldn't know of any good pizza places around here, would you?"

Chapter 3.3

The next morning, I tried to keep the heat out of Summit by attempting to convince the twins to stay home for the day. Tia rebuffed, saying there were "important things to do at Summit and we can't be lazy," which made me regret instilling the virtues of responsibility into her. And to no surprise, Basil snorted at the suggestion of leaving his sister alone and vulnerable to all the immoral lechers at Summit (which, considering it was the place that employed Mark Ellis, was understandable). So I chucked in some aspirin and prepped myself up for the day.

I had it all wrong. All this time I've been concentrating on Basil when I should have been worried about his twin sister. But here's the thing, she gave me no reason to do so. Not today, not yesterday, not a week ago. With her face pressed against the train windows to study the urban scenery, she was the same Isian that I've always known. The only thing keeping her from coming up and socializing with the rest of us was her brother's sour grimaces.

Telling everyone equipped with a pair to stay away from her would've been a moot exercise. Everyone got the point by now, even the densest idiot of the lot. Disquieting lulls trailed Basil's path near his sister; at least ten decibels died when the twins sliced through the lobby, their silent corpses buried underneath Tia's humming. Even the burly robotic lab sentries retreated when Basil approached and growled at them. I remembered they came factory-equipped with male voiceprints.

Poor Mark, though. He didn't have the luxury of timidness the rest of us had, being the foreman and all. It wasn't even an hour into the shift before our brave and fearless leader once again faced grave peril against the beast, armed with nothing but an uncapped black pen. That duty called to him and him alone.

"All right, I'm going to tell you once, and only once," he said to the great beast. He postured at the lower steps and held the pen out at his adversary. "Move the hell out of my way. I'm going to go down and I'm going to get my papers. All right? Nobody gets hurt."

"No," the beast answered.

"Look, guy. I need those files, okay? I'm just going to go down there and get it. Then I'll leave, got it? No trouble with you or anyone else, nice and easy."

"Go away."

Mark gripped his fist red and deformed the pen with a crunch. He took a step forward. Basil dropped down on all fours and arched his back. The foreman's legs seized and the ruined pen dropped from his hand, leaving him only a vulnerable finger to point with. "I'm--" He sputtered and stepped back. "I'm just going to ask you one more time, okay? I'm not going to repeat myself."

The Isian growled, a deep bladder-shattering rumble that ate all the other noise in the room. "Me neither."

Poisoned by the basilisk's toxic stare, Mark froze in place. His testosterone-fueled manliness had dropped overboard six steps ago and left behind a husk of flotsam out to die. One person in the lab assisted him by forming the sign of the cross. Me, I was bummed I didn't bring any popcorn for the morning.

His salvation came when Tia sat up from her perch on the holo platform and waved a folder of documents over her head.

"I found it, Mark!" she called out. "Is this what you wanted?"

Without any formalities, Basil snatched the folder from her hands and shoved it onto Mark's chest. "There, you have it. Go!" he said, pushing Mark up the steps. Mark seemed all too eager to turn around and hurry back up while cursing what's left of his pride.

"Goddamn fucking animals," he muttered as he passed me.

"Told you to not leave the stuff on the table, Mark. See what happens when you don't listen?"

"Shut up, Lyle. Just shut up."

The newly installed lab door hissed open and interrupted my chuckle. A set of odd footsteps, tinny and precise like a metronome, echoed. A cold hand met my shoulders, and I turned around to find a smile.

"Working well are we, Mr. Ivano?" Aimee asked.

"Well, aren't you a fish out of water, Miss Receptionist Bot. Finally decided to make a visit for those wretched bastards at SE-2?"

"Ah, purely on business, I assure you." She gestured to the Isians. "I came to collect our dear friends here. Considering their state, I was the only appropriate personnel."

"Collect them for what?"

Aimee didn't say anything and walked down to the pit that Basil guarded. He sat upright and whisked his tail in calm swathes. Aimee bent over with her hands on her knees. "How are you doing today, my Isian friend?" she asked him.

"Oh." Basil clicked and scratched his chin. "Pretty good. It's a pretty day."

"Indeed. It is about twenty-four degrees outside. A good day to play around in the courtyard, yes?"

"Yeah, I think so. It'd be nice. Hey, what are they having for the cafeteria, anyway? Do they still meatloaf?"

"No, I am afraid today's special is spaghetti."

He stuck out his tongue. "Ew. Oh well. Thanks anyway." He licked Aimee's shiny face, the first sign of affection I've seen him give in what seemed like forever.

Aimee smiled and patted him down. "Could you do you me a favor?" she asked, continuing when he nodded. "Go and get your sister and meet me in the lobby, would you? Ms. Neuman is here to see you both."

"You mean Arlene?"

"Yes. Would you?"

Thumping his tail enthusiastically on the floor, he jumped and clasped his hands together in excitement. "Oh yes! I will. Thanks Aimee!"

She gave him a quick neck rub and walked back up.

"What's this about?" I asked her.

"Ms. Neuman is taking care of our little friend's anxiety issue," she said. She waved Mark goodbye and left the lab. The foreman grunted and shook his head.

Basil, burning off his newfound excitement, stood on the platform and tugged at Tia's legs and tail to coax her off her roost. Tia was in no mood to humor him and clasped her claws onto the platform edges while grunting disapprovingly. Her brother's squawks finally won out, though, and she slid off the platform and allowed herself to be drug by the hand up the stairs behind her grinning brother.

"Wait, wait!" she said when they passed me. She pulled back against Basil. "Let's bring Ly-lee too."

"Ly-lee?" The sight of me melted his expression back into a scowl. "Why bring him?"

"Because he's our friend and he has to."

Basil snorted and faced away. "Fine, whatever. Can we just go already? Arlene's waiting."

"Come on, Ly-lee. Let's go see Arlene together."

She uncoupled her hand from Basil's and pried my hands from the keyboard. She pulled me out of my seat and led out the lab, and Basil followed behind. I waved goodbye to Mark, who just grunted again.

Arlene was waiting at Aimee's desk, and she waved us over. Tia sprinted to her while dragging me behind, and I felt like I almost broke my legs trying to keep up with her.

"How's my little girl doing?" Arlene cooed when Tia reached her. She ruffled through Tia's frill and charmed the lizard to release my hand.

Basil jumped over his sister and into Arlene's arms, which almost caused her to fall over if weren't for the desk behind her. "Hey Arlene, we missed you!" he said.

"Hey, I was here first!" Tia said, trying to push between them.

"Settle down guys," Arlene said. "No need to be rude to each other." She saw me and waved hello, which I returned.

"So, what are we doing?" Tia asked. "Basil won't tell me."

Arlene knelt down and patted her forehead. "Well, I think you know what's going on, Tia. How come you didn't tell me?"

Tia shrugged and scratched her ears. "I didn't think it was that important."

"You know it is. We have to get you checked up and everything to make sure you're still healthy. You know this."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Arlene rubbed Tia's neck. "It's okay. Just make sure you tell me if I forget next time, okay? In the meantime, we'll get back to Wyvern so we can run a physical on you."

"Do I have to? Can't we skip it just this one time? I have lots of stuff to do here."

"No, young lady. You have to go."

She crossed her arms and pouted, and then sighed in defeat when Arlene gave her a hard parental look. "Okay. I'll go, then."

"It'll be only a day or two, Tia. You'll be back in here with your friends in no time." Arlene eyed me when she said that. "Anyway, Natalia's already made space in her room for you so that you can stay with her."

Tia perked her head up and chirped. "Oh! I have so much to tell her about, especially about my new friend at the zoo."

"Hey Arlene, how about the guys?" Basil asked. "Are they going to be around there? Around Sis?"

With a knowing grin on her lips, Arlene patted his head. "Ushi promised me that he'll keep the drakes in line. He said that no one will bother her."

"Well, are you sure? You know, Kappa and Gimel have been staring at Tia an awful lot last time I saw them."

"Basil, do you listen to what Ushi says?"

"Well, yeah. He never lies to me."

"Then trust him. He promised that he'd make all the guys behave for you. So don't worry about it too much, okay?"

He clicked his tongue. "Okay."

Arlene straightened her clothes and motioned Tia to her. "Well Tia, I think it's time for us to go now. The car's waiting outside."

"All right."

Tia started to leave with Arlene, but then turned to me. She placed her claws on my chest.

"Well, Ly-lee. I guess I'll be gone for a little bit. Are you going to miss me?"

"I'm going to miss you," I said.

She purred and licked my cheek. "Aw, don't miss me too hard, Ly-lee. It's not healthy for you. And a handsome person like you should be healthy. You have to be healthy to play with those twenty girls you have, right?"

Arlene gave me a raised brow.

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind."

I felt a lump wedging itself between our bodies and looked down to find Basil staring up at me.

"Alright, alright, alright." he said. "Time to go, time for everyone to go!" He pried Tia away from me and pushed her to Arlene.

"Bye Ly-lee, bye little brother!" Tia said, flapping both her hands at us. "Be back soon!"

"Later guys," Arlene said. She took Tia's hand and they left.

Basil jumped onto the desk and hunched down. He tracked the pair and clicked his tongue for each step they made through the lobby until they exited the building. Letting his head hang low, he closed his eyes and released a cathartic breath from his lungs. He turned around and said, "Hey, Ly-lee, want to go and get some to eat? We could eat outside, I'm starving!"

---

I didn't feel guilty about stealing a ham panini from the Isian collection basket, considering how Basil hoarded the whole mound in his sister's absence. Wide-eyed and unrestrained, he shoveled as much as he could in his arms, and he asked me to meet him later after he visited the cafeteria to pad his bounty. I figured provisioning a small sandwich for myself was a fair trade for my patience over the past week.

I found a bench in the courtyard under the open sun and munched on the sandwich (a mass-produced variety wrapped in cellophane to give an illusion of sophistication). I really looked forward to getting back to know the old, carefree Basil.

The bench buckled and unbalanced slightly when a man of obvious part-gorilla ancestry laid his weight next to me. I choked out a bit of soggy bread when he slapped my back. He stretched his arms over the bench and said, "Got good news, Lyle. Gonna be a beautiful night tonight. Beautiful night with beautiful girls. Beau-ti-ful!"

I swallowed the remains of the mouthful and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "Found another tramp on the street corner I take it, Mark?"

"Ha! Not just 'another' tramp, you bastard. Two!" He waved a pair of fingers to my face.

"Wow, two girls? That's, uh. That's something, man."

"You goddamn right that's something. You know what's better? They're twins. Identical! Same blonde hair, same body, same legs, same tits, same ass, same everything. They wear the same damned clothes and even have kinda the same name. Hey, you goddamn know who's the man? You bet your ass you do."

"You know, Mark, I've known you for a long time, and that sounds too much for even you."

"You're damn right it's too much for me!" he bellowed, slapping my leg. "That's the reason you're coming with."

"What? Go with you and your twins?"

"Hell yes. You and me, rocking out the town with some big-tittied chicks, the way God intended."

"Mark-goddamn-Ellis is actually passing up on two females? What the hell happened to you, man?"

"Hey guy, threesomes are hard work, okay? It sounds great and all, but you know how much crap you have to go through to make two girls happy? It's not easy, I'm telling you. And they're sisters too. It's a bit freaky, you know? I mean, I really don't give a fuck because they ain't my sisters, but still. It's kind of weird." He gripped my shoulder. "Look you take Clara and I'll take Clarice. The two of us can go out to town together. It'll be fun."

I placed the sandwich on my lap and pondered his offer. "I dunno, Mark. I'll have to think about it."

"Think nothing, you bastard. I'm saying your ass needs to get out more and get some. You're not doing yourself any favors. I mean, what happened with that date with that Wyvern chick?"

"It wasn't a date. And nothing happened."

"See, that's what I'm saying! You know what breaks my heart more than anything else in the world? It's my man Lyle here getting cooped up all day in some fucking apartment and depriving all the ladies in the world of his dick. You gotta go out and do this, man. If not for you or for me, then the entire female race. They brought you to this world, and you owe them. Anyway, forget about that ice bitch, you can do better than her. Come with me."

"I don't know. I have to take care of Basil."

"Forget him. You've been smooshed up with those damned twins long enough. Come have fun with my twins, all right? You take Clarice and I'll take Clara. We'll have fun. It'll be good."

His words rang sweet in my ear. Visions of a nubile set of twins flashed through my mind, their bronze bodies lying on a pillow of roses and their modesty covered only by their long golden locks. Their voices moaned my name in ecstasy. "Lyle... oh Lyle!" Twins, and not the scaly ones but the fuckable kind. Dare a man dream? I almost did, until the voice of reason smashed it away.

"Hey, whatcha guys doing?"

Mark jerked back and he clenched into my flesh until I yelped and knocked his arm away. He shuffled to the far end of the bench and his eyes seized on something on opposite other side. Basil greeted us with slab of meat clutched in his claws. He tore off a piece from the chunk and swallowed a mouthful.

"Isn't this a nice day today?" he asked.

"Yeah, it is." I said.

Basil nodded his head and turned to Mark. I jabbed Mark's side.

"Ow, what the hell, Lyle?" he yelped.

"Well, isn't it a good day?" I said.

"Yeah, yeah, good day, whatever. Geez." He rubbed his side, still keeping his eyes on the Isian.

"Ah, such a nice, wonderful day," Basil said. He jumped onto the bench and sat between us. "Want some of this, Mark?"

Mark stared at him with a disbelieving look and shook his head. He watched Basil shrug and take another bite. "You're awfully happy bastard right now, ain't you?" he said.

"Well, of course I am! It's great sitting outside in a nice day with nice friends and eating nice food."

"Right. Sure is," said Mark with a hint of bravado. His confused eyes betrayed him.

"So what were you guys talking about before?" Basil asked, his voice muffled from the entire slab of meat he stuffed in his maw.

"Girls," Mark said.

"Oh, what about them?"

"We're talking about how our man Lyle here has to go out and get some."

Basil turned around to face me. "You're not getting any girls? Why? I think you should."

Mark pointed a finger to me. "Ha! See? Even the lizard gets it! If you're not gonna listen to me, then listen to your scaly friend here. He's telling the truth."

"I think it's good to out with girls, Ly-lee. They're fun to be with."

"Damn right they're fun!"

Ah, what could I have said? Mark had his chest-thumping alpha male thing going on, telling me how it was my genetic duty to chase the tail, while Basil repeatedly asserted that playing with the fairer sex was "awesome." After a while, I started believing them.

"All right, I got it," I said. "Do the girl thing. I'll do it sometime."

Mark leaned over to slap my back. "Yeah, that's it! You and me going out and doing what nature intended, the way it should be." He caught Basil looking on with a hopeful-eyed "how about me?" expression. He patted the lizard's neck. "How about you, little guy? You got any lizard chicks you're chasing?"

"Huh? Me? Well..." He looked down and shook his head. "Not really."

"What do you mean 'not really?' Jesus you're just like Lyle. No wonder you guys get along so much!"

"I don't think this is something you should be concerned with," I said.

"Like hell I won't. This ain't happening, not on my watch. No man in my labs, lizard or not, is going home like this, that's not how I get paid." He gripped Basil's neck. "Listen, buddy. Uncle Mark's gonna help you out. You've got to have seen at least a couple of cute lizard babes before, right?"

"Yeah," Basil said, perking his head up. "I've seen some."

"Great! Y'see, that's how you start, with some. Which one was the prettiest? The cutest? The hottest?"

"My sister Tia," Basil said without a second thought.

The energized look on Mark's face quickly dissolved into an incredulous mush. He shook his head and slapped his hands together. "Woah, woah! Time out, asshole! It can't be your sister, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Basil looked confused. "But you asked me which girl was the prettiest, and that's Sis."

"Goddammit, no!" Mark yelled. He pointed at me. "What the hell, Lyle? What've you been teaching this poor kid?"

I waved him off.

He pointed at Basil. "Buddy, do you want me to help you? You want me to help you get the girls or not?"

"Oh yes, I do!" Basil said. He stood on the bench and bobbed his head and thumped his tail on my lap.

"Then, you're going to have to help me first. Tell me the cutest girl you know that's not your goddamn sister, okay? Just do that for me."

"Oh. Hmm." He pondered for a bit--apparently second place was a long debate for him. His ears perked up when he finally discovered the answer. "Okay, I got it. There was this really pretty girl at Wyvern, once. Her name was Ara--"

Mark interrupted. "No, I don't want to know her name. A chick's name is never important, see? Now, say you're trying to impress this girl. What do you do?"

"Sing."

"What?"

"I'll sing. I'll sing my song, and hopefully she likes it."

The words struck like a spear through the Mark's chest, judging by his corpse-like stare. "Sing? Are you kidding me?"

"No? But that's what you do, right?"

"Goddammit. Goddammit, no! That's not what you do! You don't get girls by singing!"

"Don't listen to him," I said to Basil. "Girls love a guy who can sing. It's a wonderful thing."

"Listen nothing, that's bullshit," Mark snapped. "You don't go out and sing or any queer shit like that if you want the girls. Fact. Buddy, look at me. Do I look like the type of person that sings? Hell no! That only works in the movies, and the world isn't a goddamn movie. Look, forget everything you heard. You want to get a girl? You have to take her. You got to lock her down and take her. Pin her down if you have to, do what comes naturally. It's the instinct that all males have, you just have to tap into yourself and bring him out. You get what I'm saying?"

"Just great, Mark," I said. "You just advised him to start raping girls."

"I didn't tell him to rape nobody, asshole, what the hell is wrong with you? Figuratively, I'm telling him to go out and be strong. Girls aren't going to be interested in you just because you ask them. They have to feel it, and they feel it only if the guy is tough and knows what he wants. Haven't you seen those nature documentaries? Females are all like this. The lion only gets his pride if he proves he's the toughest motherfucker in the plains. He has to show that he wants it. When he does that, the pussy comes naturally. That's confidence, buddy. It's universal. Right?"

He slapped Basil's shoulder and gave a thumbs up. All he got in return was a wide-mouthed look of horror on the Isian's tapered face.

"You... you can't do that!" Basil cried.

"Why not?"

"Girls are strong! They'll kill you if you try to do that!"

"What? No they won't. What a goddamn minute here." Mark lifted a finger to Basil's snout and tapped his nose. "Are you telling me you've got beaten up by a girl?"

Basil lurched back and fell onto my lap. Underneath Mark's pointed gaze, he looked away, saying, "Well, I mean. I guess there's this one time..."

Mark threw up his hands. "Well, that's it. It's over, I'm done." He stood up and brushed off his bottom. "I can't do this. I can't help someone who can't help himself. Sorry, I have limits. I'm not even working with a real man here, this is impossible."

"Christ Mark, stop being a melodramatic asshole," I said, holding Basil to my lap.

"He got jumped by a goddamn lizard girl!"

"You got jumped by a goddamn lizard girl! Or have you forgotten?"

His cheeks flushed crimson. He flicked his hand into the air at no one in particular.

"Forget it, man. Whatever. I'm going to eat lunch and take care of some reports. Offer's still good for tonight Lyle, if you want it." He waved a finger at Basil. "As for you, my scaly friend. I would consider going gay if I were you. I think it'd make things a lot easier. Later."

After Mark left, Basil turned to me and scratched his chin. "I'm not sure what he means by that," he said.

"Don't listen to him. He talks a lot, but he doesn't know anything."

"Yeah, well. He sure has a lot of girls though. I'd be nice to be like him for a little bit, just to see what it's like."

It was something we both could agree with.

Chapter 3.4

I had forgotten how good eggs smelled in the morning. It's wonderful stuff. Granted, they're temperamental, and getting them to that state of goodness takes a bit of commitment. You forget those shells, dank odor, and goopy consistency once they touch a hot pan and caress your nose with a full, buttery aroma. I haven't prepared a decent breakfast in a good while.

My cooking stirred Basil from his roost and he stumbled, eyes half-open, into the kitchen to investigate. Something to boggle the mind: I actually woke up earlier than an Isian for a change--and on my vacation no less. So out of touch I was with vacation time, I didn't remember how to sleep in for the day. On the bright side, it's one of those rare times where the smell of breakfast didn't make me want to retch dinner back up.

Basil's eyes fluttered open and his nostrils flared. He leaned over the stove and sniffed in the steam from the frying eggs. "What's that?"

"Eggs for breakfast. Want some?"

"Sure!"

The egg carton on the counter caught his eye, and he plucked one out and dropped it in his mouth. He winced and bit into the egg until it broke with a dull crack. He gulped the whole thing down at once. "Yummy!"

"I was thinking more like this," I said. I folded in a mix of ham, peppers, and cheese into the solidifying egg. "It's an omelette. I'll make you one too, if you want."

Basil studied the concoction. "Huh, well. I don't know if I want any, actually."

"It's good. Here, have a bite."

I broke off a small cooked piece from the corner and offered it on my spatula. He pinched the piece with his fingers and, after holding it for a moments study, slurped it into his mouth. His face twisted in concentration as he chewed and gauged its worth.

"Well, how is it?" I asked.

He swallowed the bit and shrugged. "It's okay, I guess. But you can have it." He looked over to the whole eggs. "Can I have some more normal ones, though?"

I nodded, and he scooped up an egg in each hand and bounded to the living room. I slid my omelette onto a plate and followed. I sat next to him on the couch with my legs stretched over the coffee table and plate balanced on my lap. Basil, obviously a master of leisure time efficiency, had already opened a new episode of a children's cartoon, Captain Starslinger and the Galactic Empire. The show's fascinating stuff, though I always wondered if the noble and fearless captain would ever find the Lost Ark of the Bai'Satheeik. Maybe he was always doomed to failure, for finding it would allow peace and prosperity to reign throughout the galaxy, and we couldn't possibly have that. Peace doesn't sell merchandise.

Ah, the simple joys of eating eggs and watching kids' shows in your underwear. Those bastards at my company owed me that much, I figured. I ruffled Basil's neck as the show mesmerized him into a slow chew of his egg. My only regret was that Tia wasn't here to share the good times. I wolfed down my omelette. I'll have to make it up to her sometime.

Starslinger's chase after the nefarious Alien Warlord ended with (another) cliffhanger when a space beast swallowed his galactic warship and doomed him to dissolve in a pit of digestive acids. The break allowed Basil to blink and swallow.

"You think he will ever rescue the Princess from the Alien Warlord?" he asked me.

"Sure, the good guys always win in these shows."

"Yeah, I think so. They always make it look like he might lose and keep you guessing. That's why we like this show."

"You watch this with Tia all the time?"

"Nah, she doesn't care about it. I watch with all the guys when I was at Wyvern. Rho's the biggest Starslinger fan ever. He even has all the action figures and stuff. Once, Kappa hid one of his dolls and he tore through everything in the barracks to try get it back. Zeta and Eta later found it for him though."

When you hear an odd name, you might have to take a moment to understand what you just heard. I took a good while to make sense of Basil's series of college fraternities jacked into a blender.

"Say Basil, who are these people you're talking about, anyway?"

"The guys? They're my brothers."

Brothers? All this time, I thought Tia was his only sibling. "How come you never told me you had other brothers? You only talk about your sister."

"That's because they're not really my brothers. That's just what Ushi calls us. He says that we're all brothers, even though we're not, and we have to love each other and keep together and everything. Does that make sense to you?"

"It does, actually."

"Oh good, because it never made sense to me. Maybe you can explain it to me sometime." He scooped his second egg into his mouth and crunched it apart. "Anyway, yeah. My brothers-but-not-really-brothers. They're pretty awesome. I miss them sometimes."

Geez, what names! The folks at Wyvern must have been committed to obsession with their naming concepts. I finished the last bite of my breakfast and wiped my mouth with the hem of my t-shirt. I poked Basil for more information about his brethren.

"So, how many Isians are there at Wyvern, anyway?"

"At Wyvern? I dunno. Wyvern has a lot of places everywhere. But at our old home, there were eleven of us. Well, nine since we left."

"Really? That many?"

"Yeah. There was me, Sis, Kappa, Rho, Zeta, Eta, Gimel, Nu, Aleph, Ushi, and Kidna," he said, counting each individual with his six fingers and continuing on his toes after running out of digits. "So, eleven. There were a couple more, but they left after a while."

"Wow, that sounds like a big happy family."

"Sometimes we are. Other times, everyone just fights with each other. I'm glad Tia isn't with the guys. I really don't like it when they hang around with her by themselves."

I went to dump my plate in the sink. On the way, I noticed a knapsack on the kitchen table. So long since the twins had made use of them, the sacks blended into my apartment's decor, and it was only after Tia was gone that my eyes took interest to this one. I tugged the bag back to the living room after setting the plate away.

"This isn't yours, right?" I asked Basil to confirm.

"Nope," he said after a casual glance away from his show. "It's Tia's. She must of left it behind."

"All right. I'll just put it away then."

I moved to stow it away, but he whistled for attention.

"You didn't open it did you?"

"No. Why?"

"Tia's special stone in there. You don't want to mess with her special stone."

"Special stone?"

"Yeah. It's her most favorite thing ever in the world. She loves it so much. Too much, I think. One time, I took it just to see what it was like. But I accidentally dropped it and it got lost in a gutter. She got so angry that she bit off a piece of my tail. See? Here look."

He laid himself on his side on the couch, exposing the underside of his tail, and waved me in for a closer look. Near the base of the tail, he rubbed a spot that, under closer inspection, was actually a shallow depression where you would expect flesh to be. Coarse-looking teeth marks scarred the area like something had bitten a chunk of his tail clean off. I groaned and swallowed at the thought of the horrific agony I imagined must have followed.

"Did that... hurt?" I stammered.

"Oh yeah. There was so much blood, and it hurt so bad I couldn't walk for three weeks."

I clutched my abdomen and shared his pain. "That sounds terrible, Basil."

He shook his head. "It was actually pretty cool. Because she felt so bad about it, she took care of me until I got all better. She made me blankets, gave me baths and massages, she even fed me all her food." He licked his lips with a wistful expression. "I wish she would bite my tail again. I love it when she takes care of me."

"Well, I'm glad you got better."

"Eh, I thought I got better too fast. One or two more weeks would've been good. But anyway, she eventually found it and wouldn't let me go near it again. Not that I ever wanted to, anyway."

"What kind of stone is this that would make her do that to you, anyway?"

"Well, it's pretty, I guess. That's about it. You know how girls are, they see something pretty and they become crazy and stuff. She really loves it. I think she loves it more than me. She doesn't show it to anyone unless she really, really, really likes them. Really." He bit his tongue and intoned the last "really" as a slur. "Anyway, I never tried to touch or even look at it again. And you shouldn't either, or else she might bite off your tail."

I nodded in understanding and placed the bag in the living room's corner closet, the one with a working lock. I could only imagine what sort of magnificent gem it must have contained for Tia to maim her own brother. Basil's mutilated tail reminded me never to find myself on the bad side of these creatures, just in case I had forgotten.

After the last show ended, we spent the remainder of the morning as good, healthy adult men should: happily conked out in the living room--me lounging on the sofa in my underwear and Basil occupying himself with snores on the carpet. Away from the bustle and artificial responsibilities of civilization, this was the natural environment for the common male. I would have loved it forever if the door chime hadn't pulled me away from the slice of heaven on the couch that I'd carved with my ass.

I prepared to tell off my landlord again as I drug myself to the door and opened it without bothering to check the visitor's camera. Instead, a lanky, blue-on-white striped robot greeted me. It wore an emblem of a stylized bald eagle on its right breast over a lengthy serial number. The bot held a manila envelope in its spindly blue hands and presented it to me.

"Registered mail for Ms. Cusaris," the bot said in a scratchy androgynous voice.

"Ms. Cusaris?" I repeated, still a bit groggy from the nap. "I think I have the wrong place, there's no Cusaris here."

"This is the correct address, sir. I have mail for one Ms. Cusaris."

"Did you say Cusaris?" I heard a voice say. Basil shuffled up behind me and peeked out the door. "Are you talking about Tia?"

"I have mail addressed to Ms. Tiamat Cusaris," it clarified.

The envelope vanished from sight and left the postal robot holding air and looking at me in a state of mechanical confusion. I gave it a few seconds for to process itself, signed for the mail, and let it go on its way. Back inside, Basil was holding the envelope up in the air and squinting his eyes to study it.

"It's from the zoo," he said.

"Yeah? What did they send her?"

"I don't know." He sniffed the package and frowned. It gave me an uneasy tingling.

"Here, let me keep it for her until she gets back," I said and offered my hand.

He shook his head and clutched the package to his chest.

"No, no. I'll do it."

"You sure? I could put in a safe place."

He thumped his tail and clicked his tongue, and a broken scowl crawled onto his face. "I said I'll do it."

I took a cautious step back when a low growl rumbled from his throat. With the yellow paper envelope crinkling underneath his claws, the Isian gripped his sister's package with an all-too-familiar antipathy I had hoped I would never have to see again. I had a feeling my vacation was over.

---

I had put on my work shirts and pants for the afternoon. It's not like I had anything else to wear, and I felt there was no point left in casual clothing. I resigned myself to my computer and studied the new shipment of power regulators Secondary was supposed to trial in three weeks. You know, stuff I would've done had I gone to work for the day. I loved vacation time.

Basil sat on the kitchen table with the envelope lying in front of him. I couldn't coax him out no matter how much I tried. He stared at the mail for the past several hours like a statue, occasionally rousing to life to scratch the yellow paper with quiet indignation. He didn't even notice the steaks I grilled for dinner.

"Hey, little guy, want some t-bone?" I asked. "It big and juicy, just for you."

Silence.

"How about some cantaloupe? We can go to the store and you can pick a couple for yourself."

Nothing.

"Do want to talk to me about anything?"

Nil. I wished Tia was here to try to make sense of her brother. And to give me someone to talk to.

"All right, I'll just leave this here for you," I said, placing the plate of meat beside him. He continued staring at the envelope without a flinch. I sighed and left him to simmer. The apartment felt quiet--the mood seemed to soak the sirens and racket of the outside's natural ambiance. I went back to the computer to work and eventually zoned out until I fell asleep on the couch.

It was about seven in the evening when a banging on the window stirred me up. I rubbed my eyes open and saw Basil still mulling over the envelope. The window banged again, a more insistent knock that warped the plastic panel. Curious, I got up and opened the window. A ferocious gust crushed me back, and I found myself staring at the ceiling. I bent my head down, confused, and found something on my chest. It stared back at me with blue eyes and a clicking jaw.

"You can stop missing me now, Ly-lee," it said.

"Wha--? Tia?" I managed to gasp after struggling the breath back into my lungs.

She nodded, clicked her tongue, and placed her arms on my chest to snuggle herself along my body. She reached her snout to my nose and flicked it with her tongue. "Well, you still look healthy and handsome. I guess I wasn't gone that long, yeah?"

"Why are you here? Aren't you supposed to be at Wyvern?"

"Silly, didn't you get my message? I said I'd be here tonight."

I shook my head.

She tapped my nose with a finger. "Oh well, it doesn't matter. I'm here now. Did you miss me?"

"Yes, I missed you," I said. It surprised me how refreshing it was to say.

She licked me again and smiled. Looking at those crinkled lizard lips, I couldn't help but to smile back. I couldn't hold it long, though, since the pressure on my chest became unbearable. I took Tia's sides and tried to wheedle her off of my chest. "Hey, you mind letting me get back up?" I asked when she wouldn't budge. She just pressed down harder.

"But it feels pretty comfortable here, don't you think?"

"Come on, Tia."

She was half my weight but many times my strength, and easily used the muscle to bolt my shoulder to floor with her claws. I continued to struggle, which only coaxed her to press harder and give me a winning smile that said she wasn't budging. After I struggled a bit more, she finally let me go and flopped off my body. She lay on her side on the floor and looked at me with mischievous eyes as if nothing had happened.

One of her ears perked up when something stirred behind us. We both turned our attention to it and found Basil gaping at us, the envelope clutched to his chest.

"Oh, hey little brother," Tia said.

"What are you doing here?" Basil asked.

"What do you think? I'm came back home, silly."

"But it's only been two days. You're still--"

"I'm still fine. I got checked up and everything. Besides, how can stay away from my dear brother and Ly-lee?" She got up and leaned down to sniff the envelope. "Whatya got there, anyway?"

Basil yelped and quickly hid the package behind him. "Oh nothing. Nothing important."

"Yeah? Lemme see." She juked back and forth around Basil as he tried to block her from the envelope. "Looks like mail. Who's it from?"

"Nobody. Nobody important."

She frowned at him and thumped her tail on the floor. She clicked and chirped, and she said something to him in the Isian tongue. Basil took a few steps back and shook his head. Tia sighed and crossed her arms. Against my better judgment, I decided to intervene.

"It's for you, Tia. The zoo sent it."

Her eyes ignited like baked matchsticks, and she she sprung at Basil with a high-pitched shrill. Basil yelped in surprise when she pinned him down, his breath escaping in an "oof!" when his chest thumped against to the floor. Tia restrained him, sitting on his back and twisting his arms behind his body, and then snatched the envelope from his claws. She held it in front of herself and squealed.

"Oh, it's here!" she cried.

She tore an end off the envelope with her mouth and shook out a single glossy sheet onto her hand. She squealed again and tossed away the envelope so she could hold the sheet up with both claws. I circled around to take a look at it. It was a photograph of a komodo dragon with its keeper off to the side. Judging by Tia's reaction, it must have been Sydney from the city zoo.

Tia held the picture up for me. "Look, look!" she said, pointing erratically at the picture. "Isn't this a lovely picture? Oh, look at him! Isn't he so handsome? He looks so strong and powerful, and look at his beautiful dark skin! Look, I think there's something written on the back. 'Dear Tia, I hope you're having a good time at Tetra. You're always welcome back to the here anytime. Yours truly, the Hamilton-Wyvern World Zoo,' Oh, how nice!"

Basil didn't look amused as he lay under his sister.

A long and unrestrained giggle escaped Tia. She finally got off her brother and, with the photo held out like a dance partner, circled across the carpet on the tips of her toes. "He likes me! He likes me!" she repeated as she pirouetted, stopping only after her back struck the apartment door with a thud. She slid down to her rump with the photo snuggled to her chest, then sighed.

Basil arched his back and then inched back onto his feet. He eyed Tia and then thumped his tail on the floor. He clicked his tongue sharply, seeming like he wanted to attract her attention, but she ignored him. He crossed his arms, looked at me, and frowned.

The Isian wasn't frowning at me, but with me.

I began to understand his thoughts and motivation, and after watching his sister hold onto that photograph like a treasured heirloom, I found myself agreeing with him. He appealed to me with a flick of his head toward Tia. I nodded and, hand held out, went to her.

"Fun's over now, Tia. Let's hand that over to me."

The command snapped her out of her reverie. She questioned me by pointing to the photograph.

"Yes, that," I said. "Give it to me."

"Why?"

"I'm going to keep it for you."

"But it's mine. I want to keep it."

"That thing has been causing trouble all morning ever since it got here, okay? See how unhappy your brother is?"

She shook her head. "No, no, no. He's just being mean again. I didn't do anything to him and neither did this picture. Please don't take it from me."

"I'm not going to ask you again. If we're going to live with each other then we're all going to have to get along with each other. Give it to me."

I brought my hand closer to her. She looked at it, then at the photo, and back to my hand. She sighed and placed the photo on my palm without further complaint. I heard her snort her disagreement behind me when I picked up the discarded mailer and slipped the photo back into it.

Basil gave her a big victorious smirk and clapped his hands together. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" he said.

"I only did it because Ly-lee asked me to," Tia said. She stuck her tongue at him. "And only because you made him. Now both of you owe me free time to watch whatever I want."

She jumped on the couch and started queuing up a series of programs.

"But a new Iron Maiden came out and I want to watch it!" Basil whined.

"Nope. Mine!"

While the twins were busy hashing out the rights to the media player, I went to my room and closed the door. The envelope showed a bright yellow when I turned on the lights, which allowed the black text of the zoo's address to contrast like ominous monoliths. An imprint of Bazaar the Bear kissed the ripped edge at a corner. I rubbed it a bit. After I slid out photograph out, I tossed it away and doomed it to live underneath my bed among years of other junk. I sat on the bed and just stared at the picture in my hands. The dragon looked back at me with that obtuse and stolid gaze only reptiles can give. Proud. Strong. Without a care in the world. Even when reduced to a lifeless image, the dragon enraptured with its presence. I pulled open the nightstand drawer and stowed the photo underneath the bottle of sleeping pills. Maybe, in there, I would forget it.

---

The reboot for my vacation (new and improved with both twins) started with another ham and cheese breakfast omelette for me and some raw breakfast eggs for the twins. They divided the eggs equitably among themselves--equality, in this case, meaning Basil got his fair pair while Tia claimed the rest of the carton. She was snacking on them like popcorn and hoarded over the morning playlist with dozens of children's educational shows.

"Can't we watch just one episode of Starslinger, Sis?" Basil begged after five minutes of enduring a malformed hand puppet singing the alphabet.

"Nope. My shows now," Tia said in between crunchy mouthfuls. She clutched the controls to her belly and plopped on top of it.

Basil tried to solicit help from me with a pitiful lost-dog look, but I just shrugged at him. He resigned to his seat and drew out his chews on his last egg. He didn't seem crushed though, and even bobbed his head to the song involving the number of toes one has. (Surprisingly, it was ten.)

I finished my omelette, and when a stuffed emu started talking about the importance of eating a well-balanced breakfast, I figured it was an opportune time to retire my plate. When I got to the sink and started washing the plate and fork, I felt a pair of fingertips tickle my ears. A grinning Tia greeted me when I turned around.

"Hi there, tall one," she said.

"Hey. We're out of eggs, if you're looking for any."

She rubbed her belly. "Oh no, I'm stuffed. I came to talk to you."

"Oh? What about?"

Her mouthed opened and she started to speak, but she choked her words out before they could form. She clacked her claws to the floor and seemed like she was trying to think of what she wanted to say.

"I need to ask you for a favor, Ly-lee," she finally said.

"What about?"

"Well, you see..." she started, then scratched her ear.

Basil interrupted with a shout from the living room. "Hey Tia, can I have one of your eggs?"

"Umm..."

"C'mon, just one? Please?"

"I'll tell you later, when my brother's asleep, okay?" Tia said to me and hurried out the kitchen.

Her coyness left me confused, and I honestly didn't know if I wanted to hear the favor she wanted from me, but it was unthinkable for me not to consider it. Whatever it was. I dunked my plate along with its soiled cousins from the days past and left the kitchen before Tia's eggs could sprout wings and start flying across my living room.

Tia's program queue, a catalog that broke through the software's hardcoded playlist limit ("Kappa showed me a neat trick with this," she said as she cheerfully voided all sorts of warranties with a hacking tool), exhausted us before long. Not even through half of the list, Tia was already snoring on the couch with the controls cradled in her arms and her ears twitching to guard it. Basil amused himself by roosting on the windowsill and doing his best feline impression. Occasionally, he would lock eyes with an actual cat from the opposite building, and he would stiffen his tail and lick his lips. Some instincts just die too hard.

Meanwhile, I tried to break the global leaderboards for "Ultra Deathball 3 DX Plus" on Basil's tablet. Every time I thought I reached new levels in my mastery of the eponymous sphere, some asshole in Uzbekistan comes in and crushes my virgin score in an orgy of glistening balls. I exhausted five hours trying to rub the smug off the fat fucking face of "SlvDethdk8" before I gave up. I wasn't properly trained to operate computers for anything other than work, and I had to retire back to the couch with my hands deformed into man-claws that were useless for anything except scratching Tia's neck.

For dinner, I grilled some steak, cuts I had bought a couple of days before that I didn't bother to marinate. Wasted effort to do so, really. Just rip off a few slabs, slap them onto a skillet, and burn. That was good enough for Isian tastes. It didn't take long for the primitive aroma of searing flesh to rouse the twins from their respective daydreams. We ate in the living room, Tia and me on the couch and Basil lying on the floor, and enjoyed the night's entertainment from the massive playlist. It had advanced to a nature documentary.

"Oh, I must have added the wrong one," Tia said. "This is the lion episode, not the dolphin one."

"No, no, keep it here," said Basil before she could skip it.

"Why? Didn't you already watch this with the guys."

"I fell asleep because I drank one of Zeta's stupid experiments, remember? C'mon, Tia. Ly-lee hasn't seen it either, right?"

Tia turned to me in silent questioning, and I shook my head. She shrugged and took a chunk out from her steak. "Okay. I kinda like lions, anyway."

The presentation was your bog-standard animal show with your bog-standard animal, yet there's something about lions that stirred the primal part of the imagination. The narrator described the behaviors of a male lion and his pride in a high-class British accent, which transformed even the most basal of instincts into something that would be home in a galleria somewhere. The particular specimen spotlighted lorded over a group of 25 lionesses, many more than his rivals. And unfortunately, nature documentaries seemed to take pride in depicting the instinctual duties of males with uncomfortable candidness.

"Now that the breeding season as begun, the male lion begins to court the lionesses as they become sexually receptive. Despite being the head lion of the pride, he must still coax them if they are to allow him to mate," the narrator stated with the intensity of describing breeding housecats.

Christ, with the frequency these shows insist on showing the act, you'd figure their directors must have been veterans of the porn industry who left for more legitimate pursuits. Old fucking habits don't die easily. I didn't care for lion porn, to be honest. I could only hope the either glosses over the actual act of carnality or a sassy and independent lioness bats the male in the face. A case of feline erectile dysfunction would also be acceptable. I crossed my fingers.

"The lioness lays down and submits to his advances, and the male can finally mate with her..."

Oh goddammit. The camera zoomed in to the quivering rumps of the mounted pair, and I turned away. Fucking nature documentary directors. Motherfucking perverts, the whole lot of them.

Truth to tell, had I been the only one watching, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash because I was a grown-fucking-man, and animals doing the nasty hadn't squicked me since I learned how not to piss all over the bathroom floor. But, consider this: You always hear stories of you Uncle Ned and how he keeps two tons of pornography in his basement, right? The relative who's a hardcore purveyor of porn, a connoisseur of cooch, a sultan of smut, and a King of Kink? He has more creampies than a Boston bakery and could tell you the exact timestamp where Eva Alexander made that world record-breaking two meter squirt on Extreme Explosive Anal Sluts 13. The man that is the stuff of legend.

And yet, every time he babysits you and some family movie comes on, sweaty beads drips from his forehead when the two leads give each other pecks on the cheeks, which always ends with him shutting everything off and suggesting a field trip to the local amusement park the next state over.

Yeah, it's sort of like that.

"Hey guys, let's watch another show, huh?" I said.

"Nah," they said.

Jesus, the lions looked like they were causing an earthquake all the way to Monaco. I shielded the side of my face with my hand. An even more terrifying sight glazed over my eye: Tia staring intently at the screen, steak suspended midair in her hands, and her eyes unblinking to catch every single frame. A grumble churned in my chest that refused to die with empty swallow.

Oh God.

Oh God!

I wasn't ready for that, not the talk! I wouldn't even know where to begin. They're lizards! Breathe, Lyle! You're an engineer. They're engineers. This is just an engineering concept. A bolt screws into a nut, a male plug fits into a female receptacle, a round peg goes into a square hole. No, wait...

My unrest only grew when Tia twisted her head to the side, squinted her eyes, and blurted, "Huh."

I choked in my breath prepared myself for the first words of a long talk. I opened my mouth. You see guys, when a man really, really loves a woman...

Tia released her steak to the plate on the table and pointed to the screen. "He's doing it all wrong," she said.

I slapped my jaw shut with a hand and covered my mouth with the other. Are you fucking serious?

Basil rotated his head along the floor to take a better look at the humping lions, and then asked, "What's wrong with it?"

"Look at him! He's going too fast and rough. That doesn't look like fun at all."

"Looks fine to me. He seems pretty happy about it."

"Well of course he does. But look at the girl, she doesn't look like she's having a good time at all. And look, he's already off!"

"That's because he's done, what else do you think?"

"He's done way too fast. That wasn't even ten seconds!"

"You're just being picky. Way too picky."

She snorted and tapped my knee, something I hoped she wouldn't do. "Hey Ly-lee, you agree with me, right? The male lion did it all wrong, didn't he?"

I gulped my mouthful and scrambled to think of what to say, but ended up stuttering out bullshit. "Tia, I don't really... I can't really say. I mean, it's a bit, you know... relative."

"How about the lion? You agree he did it way too fast, right?"

"Well, I--"

Basil bent his head around and interrupted. "He did it fine, like I said. Why are you picking on him?"

Tia snorted at him, shook her head, and went back to me. She placed her hands on my shoulders and moved her snout close to my nose. I felt her breath brush along my face and, given the current discourse, felt more than a bit uncomfortable. She went shot point-blank with her question: "How long do you usually take when you mate, Ly-lee?"

My lungs froze. I slammed my fist into my chest to resuscitate them.

"Probably the same amount of time, what do you think?" said Basil. "It's enough for everybody."

"I didn't ask you," Tia said to her brother. She clicked her tongue and then tapped my nose. "I asked you. Well? How do you do it with your twenty girls?"

The conversation numbed my tongue. On one hand, the question was intensely personal and I didn't want any part of it. On the other,*did Basil really insinuate I took ten seconds to have sex? Dammit, even I couldn't leave that well alone.

"Well," I said, "it's different with everyone really. I mean, how long I take isn't the right one for everyone else, you know? Everyone has different standards."

"What about your standards, then?"

"I, uh..." Goddamn, fuck me. "Well, I guess... I'm just not the best guy to ask about this, Tia."

"Why not?"

"I'm kind of weird and not normal. Yeah, that's bad data. You can't use bad data, right?"

"That doesn't matter. There are only two guys in this room, and you having bad data is better than him having no data," she said with a point toward Basil.

A thunk shook the room when Basil slammed his tail to the floor, which knocked Tia's steak shook off table. He sat upright and glared at us. Tia returned with a frown of annoyance.

"Hey, that was my food!" she cried.

Basil opened his mouth to retort but only his tongue lopped out, which he slipped back in and rasped instead. He flicked his tail behind him to turn off the screen and said in a low and deliberate tone, "I'm tired. I'm going to sleep. And maybe you should too. You must be so tired from all the exercise you do with your mouth."

He left to the bathroom, not seeing the tongue his sister gave him behind his back.

After the bathroom door shut, Tia grabbed my shoulders and jumped onto my lap. The sudden movement made me grab her waist in reflex. She smiled and pressed her snout to my head when I shook my hands off at the realization.

"Well, he's finally gone," she said. "Now we can finally talk by ourselves."

I shook my head. "We're not going to talk about lions anymore, are we?"

"Lions? Oh, forget about the lions. Basil never listens and we both know that I'm right anyway. I have something way more important to talk about."

I almost dreaded asking.

"What of?"

"About the f--" Her breath broke in mid-phrase. She took each of my hands, clasped them between her claws, and held them up between our faces. A shy countenance hid behind those tangled digits. She took a hesitant breath and started again. "You know that I trust you with everything, right Ly-lee? I really do. You've done everything for me and my brother. You know that, right?"

"Well, thanks Tia," I said, stupefied by the sudden declaration.

"And you trust me too, right? That I wouldn't hurt you, my brother, and everyone else?"

A pause. What was she getting at? I jostled upright on the seat, and she swayed back to keep her head behind our hands. I wasn't sure what I really wanted to answer her question with, but I felt there was only one satisfactory reply.

"Yes I do, Tia. I trust you."

Her eyes beamed wide and her frill splayed open in excitement. She clicked excitedly and gripped my hands tighter. "Oh good! We trust each other then? That makes things much easier. I need you to do me a small favor, Ly-lee."

A familiar discomfort wormed its way back into my consciousness, something I tried my damndest to root out when I nodded. The useless effort only served to feed it, especially when she started to speak again.

"You know the new park that just opened about a week ago? The one next to the train station. Allester Park, I think it's called?" She waited, and I shrugged for her to continue. "Well, do you think you can take Basil there for a day? Maybe tomorrow?"

"You want me take you guys to the park?" I chuckled in relief. "Geez, Tia. There's nothing wrong with that. Sure, I'll take you guys, no problem. You should have just asked earlier."

She bobbed our hands and shook her head. "No, no. Not us. Just Basil. I need you to take my brother there. Just you and him."

The feeling stabbed me again, probably gloating on how naive I must be to think it was that easy. It sharpened my voice when I asked her why.

"Well I need to go... somewhere," she replied. "Somewhere without him."

"Where?"

She hesitated. "The zoo. I need to go to the zoo. There's someone there I need to see."

"Why can't we go together?"

"I have to go by myself. I can't go with you or especially not Basil. He'd go crazy."

"Why do you need to go to the zoo? Why the zoo? Who are you going to see? Why are you going to see them?" I asked in quick and agitated succession. They were almost rhetorical--I was sure I already knew the answers.

"I... I can't tell you."

She yelped in surprise when I broke my hands from her claws.

"If you can't tell me then I can't help you," I said. "This is a bad idea, and I won't allow it."

"But you said you trusted me."

"I can't trust you if you're not going to tell me anything. Especially not with the zoo."

"Ly-lee..."

"No!"

She drooped her head down and wrapped her hands over mine again. She pleaded with them by rocking them up and down. Lost in a deep breath, she placed the tip of her fingers on my chest, brushed the nail against my shirt, and pressed her palm against me. She upturned her head to me, and I had to strain to hear her speak.

"I trust with everything, Ly-lee." She closed her eyes and pressed firmer onto my chest. "I would do anything for you. Anything you wanted me to. I wouldn't even ask why because I know you would only look out for me."

She took my hand, placed it on her chest, and covered it with her other claw. I gasped in surprise as I felt my hand sandwiched between the smooth and warm scales. I felt her heart beat through with a rhythm of a lullaby, and for a few seconds, my hand felt like the best part of my body. We sat, palms on the chest of one another, and she lifted her eyelids open and looked at me with timid, turquoise eyes.

"I want you to trust me, Ly-lee. Just this once. I want you to trust me not to do anything that would hurt you or anyone else. Please."

Those damned eyes.

"I don't... I don't know," I sputtered. "I just don't like the idea of you going there by yourself."

"I'll be fine. I've already thought about it, don't worry. This is just something I need to do myself." She knelt to eye level and bent in closer until her reptilian eyes filled my gaze. "Please, Ly-lee. Just this once, and I won't ask you ever again."

"Tia..."

I stared into her pleading eyes. Dammit. God-fucking-dammit.

"Just this once," I said. "But only once."

The Isian leapt her full weight against me and almost blew me out of the couch. She squeezed me with her powerful arms and planted sloppy licks over my face and neck. "Thank you! Thank you!" she said between excited chirps and whistles. "I knew you'd understand, Ly-lee!"

"Yeah," I said. I moved my hands to her body to with the intention of cajoling her off, but instead, wrapped them around her and rubbed her smooth back. "No problem, Tia."

She pulled up and lay on top of my chest. With a happy lick to my chin, she said, "You won't regret it, Ly-lee. This is going to be good for all of us. I promise. Pretty promise!"

Somehow, I didn't believe her. Maybe I just didn't want to.

4. Trust is a promise to break.

Chapter 4.1

Tia's dedication to the plan drove deep, apparent when she scribed for me a surprisingly detailed plan bludgeoned on both sides of a large napkin. Here, an Isian demonstrated how shrewd she could be when she's motivated enough, especially when I observed her slathering on a cakey concoction of flour, water, and thickeners underneath her eyelids. The mixture, which she mixed together earlier in the morning, dried into sickly crusts that infested her face. This was step four on the napkin.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked her.

"Oh it's fine. You eat this stuff, don't you? Besides, I have to make myself look really sick." She dipped a finger into the bowl to collect some paste and circled it around the insides of her nostrils, all the while examining her handiwork on a vanity mirror I didn't even know I owned.

"No, I mean going out there by yourself. I'm still not comfortable with it."

The action of clicking her tongue broke apart some of the crusty flakes on her face. "You know what your problem is, Ly-lee? You're too nice. Sometimes, you have to stop worrying about others too much."

"Well I'm sorry. I'll try to work on being mean next time."

"Oh no, don't ever change. A nasty Ly-lee would just make me so sad. How's my face? Do I look sick enough, yet?"

"Positively noxious."

She whistled and slapped the finishing smatters of goop on her cheeks and the corners of her lips. She took a final glance-over on the mirror and chirped. "So, you know what you're going to do at the park with Basil? You read my list of things to do, right?"

"Yeah, a little." A white lie. My morning eyes found it difficult to focus on the text condensed on the napkin, so I didn't bother to strain them.

"All right, then. The tram will come to pick me at nine, so you should leave around eight-thirty. I'll be back at four-thirty, and you should come back at five. That should be plenty of time, I think."

Steps ten, eleven, fifteen, and twenty. I nodded. It was a simple plan. I'll take Basil out for a day of sunshine and activity at the park, she'll sneak out and come back before we get home, and her brother would be none the wiser. That was the basic idea. Good thing "basic ideas" were always optimistic bullshit.

A dull thud followed by shrill scratches of claw-on-porcelain sounded from the bathroom; the sounds burrowed out of the wall in hollow shells, but kept distinct enough to perk up Tia's ears.

"He's waking up!" she said. "Come on, let's get ready."

She grabbed my hand and led me to the bedroom. When we came next to the kitchen table, she dug her talons into the floor and shrieked.

"Where's my bag? I swore I left it here."

"I put it away," I said. "It's in the closet."

"Oh, whew! I thought I lost it somewhere." She eyed me with a crooked look. "You didn't take anything out, did you?"

"Oh no. I just put it away, that's all."

I took out her knapsack from the closet and handed it to her. Leaving nothing to chance, she opened the bag and dug her head inside to rustle through her possessions, an action that filled me with no small amount of nervousness. Shit, please don't bite off my tail, I thought, clenching my butt tight. I relaxed when she chirped an approval.

"Oh good, it's still there," she said. "It would be horrible if I couldn't show it to him."

She slung the bag over her shoulders and retook my hand. Just outside the bedroom, she stopped me and scampered in. She closed the door and left a crack just large enough to let out a few last minute words.

"So you got this handled, right Ly-lee?"

"Yep."

"You're going to take good care of my brother, right?"

"Of course."

"Promise?"

"Absolutely."

She gave one last nod and shut the bedroom door closed just as the bathroom's clicked open. A foggy-eyed Basil staggered out with his coordination still lost in some sleepy wonderland. He rubbed and blinked his eyes open just enough to pull out a vague, head-wavering recognition of my morning greeting. He tumbled from a misstep, jerked his arms out to steady himself against the wall, and then turned his back against it. His shaky legs propped him up for a few seconds before allowing his body to slide down to the floor. He padded his head against the wall and groaned. It was almost eight.

"Bad night, little guy?" I asked.

"It was pretty cold," he said. Using the wall against his back as support, he leveraged his tail and pushed himself back up on wobbly legs. He locked his limbs straight and clawed his hands into the plaster. "Kinda cold. Sorta cold. Pretty cold."

"Cheer up, buddy. Some hot breakfast will warm you right up."

The mention of the sacred ritual vitalized him. "Oh yes, breakfast. Let's make some eggs before Tia wakes up." He shifted his weight onto his feet and peered to the kitchen and living room. He whistled. "Where is she anyway?"

"She's asleep in my room," I said.

He gave me a curious raise of a scaled brow. "She slept with you last night?"

I quickly shook my head. "Oh, no. I let her sleep on my bed after I woke up. She was feeling under the weather."

"What?" He scampered back into the bathroom and perched atop the bathtub's rim to look out the window. "The weather's fine!"

"No, I mean she doesn't feel well. She's in my room right now and she looks quite sick."

A look of concern gummed his face. "Sick? Is she all right?"

"I think she'll be fine. She just got a little bug, that's all."

"I'll go and check on her."

"You don't want to do that. She looks pretty awful. You might catch it too."

"I still want to see."

Unable to drive away his insistence, I stepped aside and let him enter the bedroom. He cracked the door open and turned his head sideways to probe through the crack. The space widened, and he slunk into the room. A moment's hair after he closed the door behind him, an eardrum-punching shriek seared from the room, followed by thumps of things falling to the ground. It all ended with a room-shaking crash on the door that startled me back a few jumps. The door swung open, and Basil rushed back out. He bashed the door shut and froze his back and limbs against the door to seal in the monster beyond.

"I told you she looked pretty sick," I said.

He shook his head several times and swallowed a softball. "You think maybe we should call a doctor or something?"

"Oh, she'll be fine. It's just a cold."

"You... sure about that?"

"Yep. Come on, let's get washed up and I'll take you someplace. I don't want you to catch the bug too."

We got to Allester Park half an hour later. And boy, what a park it was. Even I was surprised how lazy the city got with that place. It wasn't so much a park than a patch of dirt and grass for the concrete pillars of the train station wipe their feet on. The pillars outnumbered the few scrawny trees that grew in puddles collected underneath the shadow of civilization above. I saw the place hundreds of times on my way to work, but I would've never guessed the city would be so clever as to designate it as an actual park. But sure enough, I found a metal placard that spelled "ALLSTR PK." bolted onto one of the pillars like a deputy badge. It was a recent ornament, maybe less than a month old considering how the dime paint was still intact and legible and poisoned pigeons hadn't piled around it yet. A thirty dollar sign and handful of steel rivets--the city sure spared no expense in its "Being Green" campaign.

Basil and I weren't the only ones to appreciate the city's fiscally responsible city beautification projects. Besides a small flock of wayward birds and a scraggly squirrel or two, a hot dog vendor made shop next to one of the support pillars, along with a vending cart that seemed half his size. He slumped on a plastic stool that elevated only his closed eyes and grizzled sideburns above the cart. The dark woolen cap worn on his head only made him look like a hobo, a bum who got lucky and stumbled upon some poor sap's lunch cart. While Basil entranced himself with a squirrel chewing on a piece of copper wire, I went to the vendor to buy some breakfast.

The vendor snored underneath a yellow umbrella attached to the cart, positioned just so to catch its shadow. The station above overshadowed the umbrella into redundancy, and it became clear to me that this was truly a bum practicing the honed bumming arts. I waited for a few minutes, hoping his hobo senses would stir him up, before I shook the cart. The umbrella swayed to the disturbance, and the man mumbled underneath his slumped head and jiggled his body to keep with the dancing shadow. I cleared my throat and called out, "Excuse me? Hey!"

He jerked up and grabbed the seat of his stool. "Eh, wut! Wut, I dinna do nothin'!" he spazzed with his head bucking in a paranoid blur. He rubbed his eyes fully open and found me with yellow-spotted eyes. Even his bristly beard couldn't hide his irritation. "The hell you want? Can't you see a guy tryin' ta get some sleep 'round here?"

He roused up and towered over the cart, and when his belly met the car and butted it, I stepped back in the fear that it might tip over and crash atop me. He clenched a gloved hand and waggled a naked figer at me.

"Whaddya want?" he asked again, sounding like he had spent a lifetime ingesting gravel.

"Hot dogs, sir," I said.

"The hell you wanna buy hot dogs for?"

"Well, I'm hungry and would like some. And I saw you had a hot dog stand and I figured I'd buy them from you, if that's okay?"

He pounded his fist on the cart. "The hell you trying to buy hot dogs from me for? Whadda I look like?"

I just grumbled underneath my breath and shook my head. Clearly, this bum hadn't lived in the civilized world long enough to understand capitalism yet. "Look," I said, "all I want to do is to give you some money. And, in exchange, all I ask is just some hot dogs. That's all. If you don't want to do that with me, then I'll gladly find someone else to trade with. Money, sir. That's all I'm trying to give you."

The vendor jostled his cart back and forth and gritted his teeth in bumly concentration. After he mulled over my proposal for a minute, the vendor grunted and spat on the ground. He then punched his hand through the top the cart and jiggled out a handful of franks, which he slapped onto the soiled griddle. He pounded a power switch and the machine hummed to life. Another compartment flipped open, and he buried his arm shoulder-deep into it with curses. Finally, he pulled out the rest of the ingredients and slapped them haphazardly on top of the cart just as the franks began to sizzle.

"People tryin' ta buy hot dogs for breakfast," he mumbled. "What the hell is goin' in this world?" He shuffled the materials onto the stove with a surprisingly clean pair of tongs and singed them on the fat seeping from the franks. "One special comin'."

"I'd like two, please," I said.

"The hell you want two for? One ain't good enough? You only need one, you fat bastard. One is plenty!"

"One just for me and one more for my friend. Besides, you get twice the money."

"Eh? There's more than one of you punks?"

I pointed over to Basil, whose interest in his fuzzy rodent friend had reached a dangerous intimacy. These were hardcore city park squirrels though, and he quickly found he was out of his league. The fuzzy-tailed bastard, not yet willing to make the commitment, snapped at a soft chunk of Basil's nose when he tried to sniff it. Basil bleated a surprised shrill and shook his head until the rodent flew off. He leaped away and found a pillar to rest against and nurture his bruised nose and ego. The squirrel, which had landed on its feet, continued gnawing its wire without a goddamn in the world.

The vendor dropped his tongs onto the frying foodstuff. "The hell is that! Is that a big fuckin' lizard? Dinosaur?"

"He's a pal of mine. He's a big fuckin' robot lizard, actually."

"Eh?"

"I'm an engineer at Tetra Corp. He's one of our advanced robot prototypes, designed to mimic a real-life organism down to the lowest detail. Very high-tech, hush-hush stuff, you know."

"Uyh. Military stuff?"

"Yeah. Don't tell anyone, though."

He retrieved the tongs and continued stirring the hot dog ingredients in between disapproving grumbles. "Damned government conspiracies, the whole lot of them. Like the world needs more of these goddamn robots. First they take our jobs, then they take our animals, next they gon' take all our women. It ain't right, I tells ya. This country needs more HELP Acts, not more damned lizard robots." Something then caught his mind, and he shook his tongs at me. "Hey, wait a minute. If that thing's a machine, why the hell does it need to eat one'a my dogs?"

"It's powered by biomass fuel cells. It needs to feed on organic material to synthesize the hydrogen reactant to catalyze."

The bum looked at me with a confused gaze before saying, "Ah, fuck it. I'm jus' a hot dog man. That science stuff is too much for me. Two specials comin'."

He cradled a pair of buns on one hand and stuffed them with sizzling franks. He was about to drop the rest of the ingredients onto the dogs when I interrupted him.

"Hey, can you just hold off on all that stuff? I'd just like some ketchup on mine."

I quickly regretted the request when he drilled a stare into me as if I just called his mother a whore.

"What? What! The hell did you say, you son-of-a-bitch?"

"I said I just wanted ketch--"

He slammed his free fist onto the cart and shook half the toppings off the griddle. "Listen buddy! I only make one hot dog in this joint, and that's the special! And that's all ya gonna get! There ain't no ketchup on the special, I don't have any ketchup to put on the special, and if I find you puttin' ketchup on my special, I'll beat the ketchup outta you, got it?"

I brought up my hands to placate him. "All right, no ketchup then, fine. Whatever you say."

"Damn right!"

He finished dressing up the dogs and shoved them to me with an irritated growl. I couldn't see the franks themselves underneath the cavalcade of toppings that looked like a pile of alien entrails dripping greasy dollops. I fished my pockets for something to hold the dog with and found a napkin, which I used to wrap the hot dogs. They didn't look at all appetizing, but under observation from the vendor, I took a cursory bite. The sizzling taste burned my taste buds. My God! The bum took notice of my approval and nodded with a winning smirk.

"Ya believe me now?"

"Hey yeah, it's pretty great!" I took another bite as fast as my mouth would allow.

"Yeah. Now gimme my money."

While I sat down the dogs on his cart and pulled out my wallet, I asked, "You know, you can make a killing out from these things at the right place. Why are you shacking up here?"

"Hah! You kiddin' me? I moved here a week ago from a shitdump in the Southside. Heard a park just opened near the trains, figured I'd take advantage of everythin', you know?"

"That doesn't seem like an upgrade."

"Listen buddy, I'm a lotta things, but I ain't dumb. This is prime real estate here. Look at this place! It's perfect. People going in an' outta the trains and plenty of shade. Got everythin' I need to sell hundreds of these babies. And no competition yet. Settle here, work it up, and own the entire hot dog business for the entire block. That's how it's done."

I handed him my cash.

"So it's working out for you here?"

He eyed me with a knowing twinkle and took my money. "Heh, I just sold a shmuck two hot dogs for breakfast. Whaddya think?"

I took back the hot dogs and walked away. I thought about what he said. It became clear to me that this wasn't a bum after all. Bums were too busy being slovenly to be ambitious. The man was an entrepreneur. I kind of envied him and his little plastic cart.

Basil was still rubbing his nose with his back against the pillar when I came to him. The squirrel had disappeared with its wire for browner pastures. I handed the poor lizard his morning meal, which he eagerly accepted. He held out the hot dog in front of him and examined it for a while, first with his eyes and then with his nostrils. After he made sense of it, he burrowed his fingertips into the hot dog, slid the frank out, and tossed the rest. He shook the wiener clean and slurped it like a popsicle.

"Good?" I asked. He gave me a nod of content.

We began to explore the park underneath the station. The civilized world above us, seeming like a jealous girlfriend sensing our unfaithful path, screeched and tore a fit timed to shrieks of incoming trains, and it awoke the slumbering passengers. The world throbbed and rumbled and the pillars seemed likely to crumble apart as the horde scrambled into the cars, but silence quickly came when the trains ferried the world's temperament away from our peace. I finished the last bits of breakfast and wiped my mouth clean with the soiled napkin.

"So what're we going to do here?" Basil asked.

"There was some things I figured we could do." I poked back into my pockets in search of the list, but it seemed to have disappeared. A spark of inspiration hit me and I opened dirty napkin I had crumpled in my hand. I found Tia's mackled writing, rendered illegible with translucent blotches of grease stains. I tossed it away and said, "On second thought, maybe we'll just find some other things to do."

"Eh? There's not much here, unless you think we should look at trees all day or something."

"Well, that's a good start, I guess?"

He cocked a look back at me and smiled, saying, "Sounds great!" before bursting ahead to the nearest tree. I kept a leisured pace behind him as he crisscrossed through the park from tree-to-tree. After he rummaged through a dozen twig-like excuses for trees, knocking, scratching, and sniffing each, the top specimen presented itself in a mammoth twig that stood twice as tall as I did. Its bark was aged like burnt skin and broke off in chunks when Basil thumped his tail on the tree's trunk. He leaped onto a branch and scaled to its peak. He whistled and waved me over.

"Ah, this is a good one," he said.

"You sure about this one? It looks rather small and rotten."

"It's the best one here. And besides, you can always make a tree better when you climb it and love it a little. See?" He jiggled on his perch and ruffled off some brown leaves. "It's twice as good already. Four times better if you come up too."

"It's fine down here, thanks. I'm not much of a tree person."

"Come on, Ly-lee. It's a good tree. You look like you could use a good climb. Don't be shy, it doesn't bite!"

He began begging with chirps and whistles in bird-like insistence. The pained swaying the tree made when Basil thumped his tail against it didn't inspire confidence, but I contemplated for a moment and thought, fuck it. I took a tentative feel on the tree's skin and brushed off loose pieces of the bark to find a solid patch to grip on. A deep, unfit breath, a one, a two, and I jumped and grabbed the lowest branch. The tree took offense and stabbed a piece of bark into my palm. With my hands quickly losing traction, I pulled a leg up to stabilize myself against the trunk and strained muscles I didn't even know I had. I gulped in a breath and scissored my legs up, and after a few moments looking like a paraplegic monkey, I finally pulled myself up to the branch. I curled up five feet off the ground, limbs wrapped upon a limb.

I almost flipped around and fell when I tried to push myself up to a sitting position, but Basil brought his tail down and steadied me back onto the branch. It nudged me to the trunk while I grabbed onto it for dear life. When I could reach the trunk, I wrapped my arms and legs around it and breathed. Basil looked down at me from his perch and chuckled.

"You don't do this a lot, do you?"

"Can't say that I do."

"Oh, that's too bad. At least you're doing it now. Fun, isn't it?" He patted the tip of his tail on my sweaty forehead. "Why don't you climb up here and join me?"

The branch creaked and bowed lower, and I tightened around the trunk. "Nah, I'm good here."

"If you want. You look like you have a good branch anyway. The first branch is always the best. It's not as good as the one as the one in Summit, but it still looks pretty good."

"You know, Basil, I've been meaning to ask. Why are you so fond of trees, anyway?"

"Eh?" He scratched his blue chin and thought about it. "Well we just do, I guess. Trees are good things. They're good to climb, good to sleep in, sometimes grow good things to eat. All trees are good, don't you think?"

"I guess," I said. I pressed closer to the trunk when a breeze swayed the branch.

"You know, Ly-lee, you should really have a tree in your house. I would love it so much if you did. The world would be so much better with more tress. Like, if the world was just a giant tree or something and you could just living on a tree forever. That would be the greatest thing. You humans wouldn't fight so much with each other if you had a nice tree to sleep in, I think."

I could only smile at Basil's treatise on the human condition. Maybe he was right, though. Suspended in that dinky branch that swayed when the second round of trains pulled into the overhead station, my body relaxed to the dance of the tree. I released my grip on the trunk, twisted around, and sat against the tree with my hands curled in my lap. "Yeah, not bad," I said to Basil after finding a comfortable balance. He didn't respond. I looked up and found him curled up in his cradle of branches, steadfast asleep.

After the last batch of train left, I rested back and tried to clear my mind. It wouldn't take. Finally unaccompanied, a fierce little niggling kept biting at me and wouldn't let go. I tried to shake it off and ignore it, that stupid petty thing. But I couldn't do much to escape it, stuck up on that tree while it pecked and pecked at me. It repeated the same word between its numbing bites: "Tia."

I told myself that there wasn't anything to worry about. That consolation burned apart immediately. I then tried to convince myself that it was a noble concern. It worked for about minute before reality bit into me again. There was nothing noble or responsible perched up in a tree in some dank city park hellhole fretting over something that wasn't my business. Say what you will about human nature, but I was too astute for that. No, in my own delusions, it was my business. That pecking niggling repeatedly reminded me in sharp, biting bursts.

God, what was wrong with me? So she met a new friend, big fucking deal. That's what Isians do. That's what everyone does. Right? Nothing wrong with that in the slightest. Her doings were hers alone. That was the correct notion, and I was raised damn well enough to know this. Right? Then why did it bother me so?

Maybe I was concerned about her safety and well-being. That was it. She's alone among untamed beasts and vicious predators, looked over only by a throng of clueless, khaki-clothed know-nothings. God knows what could happen? Right? Irresponsible!

I sighed and knocked my head back onto the tree. Whom was I kidding? I wasn't concerned about her safety in the slightest. I was worried she was having too much fun.

I clunked my head against the tree again but the muddled indecisions that overfilled my mind cushioned against the pain. I thumped it a few more times. I couldn't knock out the dredge, and it continued drilling into my skull. Eventually, I surrendered and fell asleep suspended in the tree. The niggling flew away to more exciting pastures but left behind pecked holes.

---

We woke up a little into the afternoon, driven up by hunger and driven out by another round of trains rumbling through the station. The hot dog vendor had since disappeared from the park and left us on our own to forage. We sat around for a bit and tried to decide where to eat in a fruitless exercise of bouncing thoughts back-and-forth without forming a coherent idea between the two of us. Being the unimaginative dorks that we were, we finally settled on boarding a Summit-bound train to eat at the employee cafeteria.

We arrived at the tail-end of lunchtime for most of the Summitites, and the cafeteria only offered leftovers picked cold from the crowd, but we at least we had the place to ourselves. Basil spared no time hopping atop the counter and scooping up meals for two in large globs of mish-mash. I took a seat at the corner of the room away from the few gluttons that lingered. I leaned on my elbows against the table and rubbed in my temples. My stomach moaned but my appetite was fairly dead.

Basil hobbled over with his arms barely containing the trays of food and plopped down on the table. He took a few moments to savor over the Frankensteinian mass, sprinkling it with piddles of drool, and burrowed his snout into the pile. By the time I scooped up a bite to taste, he had gobbled half his lunch down. He licked his snout clean after a breather and looked at me curiously. He poked my arm.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "You don't like it? I got the best stuff I could find."

"It's fine. I guess I just don't feel that hungry after all."

"Oh?" He twisted his head slightly and frowned. "You seem kinda wrong. Something wrong? Maybe you can tell me and I can help you."

"Nothing's wrong. Well, mostly. But it's nothing important." I took in a few mouthfuls to try to look normal, for all the good that does. He pulled the tray from me as I was about to take another scoop.

"I don't believe you." He tapped the tip of my nose. "You're bothered about something, I know it. What could it be?"

"You're imagining things."

His squinted eyes bored into me and then flew open with a squeal. He jumped atop his chair and waved his tail behind in wild arcs.

"Aha! I know! It's about Tia, right?"

I choked on a rogue bit of Tuesday Tacos and dropped my spoon. Basil took it and shook accusingly at me.

"It is, huh?" he said. "I knew it! You're awfully bad at lying, Ly-lee. You shouldn't do it."

"Maybe I'm a little worried," I admitted.

"Don't be shy about it. I'm worried about her too, you know. There's nothing wrong with that."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, sure! I wish I was back home to look after her. I never get to, though. Every time I get sick, she takes care of me and everything, and then she gets sick too. But she never lets me get near her when that happens."

I blinked a few times before I remembered Tia's faux illness. Recollecting her ploy filled me with inexplicable annoyance. "Don't worry about it, Basil," I said. "I'm sure she's just fine. In fact, I think she's having a grand old time right now." I could barely hold back a sarcastic tinge.

"Yeah, see? Much better already. So eat up and be happy. She'll be fine. Fine, just fine." He waved the spoon, dug it into to the food, and pushed the tray back to me. "It's nice that you care so much though, Ly-lee. I had to learn to trust her and hope she gets better by herself. You should too."

Trust her, he says. I took a distasteful bite.

He clicked his tongue and chirped, and he was about to dig back into his plate when he looked up with a thoughtful expression. "But, you know, I'd like to check up on her a little bit. Just to make sure."

"No can do, little guy. Can't get you sick too."

"Yeah, I know. But maybe we use her tracking module. I think the new one she got has a biosensor. We can check her vitals and stuff remotely."

"Let's not do that. It's probably--" I struggled to think of some excuses. "It's probably not even accurate. Or maybe she took her collar off because it's stuffy. It's best to not waste our time."

He shrugged. "You're probably right. It's probably not even the right model. Oh well, I don't know what I was thinking. Still," he said with a sigh, "I just wanna know if my big sister is all right. I'm not being silly am I?"

"No, you aren't."

Some guy I was, right? Let's just lie to someone. Why not? As painful as my goose-stepping felt, I already committed myself to the march, to go through these robotic motions until my legs break down. Either continue to lie or break a promise. Nothing entitled me to select between the lesser of two evils. I wanted to have it all.

But something struck me. It was an inspiration, a dark one from the turbid depths of human ingenuity. It was something that would solve everything and leave my conscious free to corrupt myself for another day. Yes, that was the answer!

"Actually Basil, never mind," I said. "I take it back. I think it'll be a good idea to check the sensor. A great idea."

"Huh? You think so?"

"Yeah, let's do it. Let's check out on your sister, right now. It'd be pretty irresponsible for us not to, don't you think? After all, we're the ones out here having a good meal while she's alone by herself and miserable."

A wrinkle of understanding formed on his face, and he clapped his hands together. "Yes, yes! Let's!"

Basil proceeded to scarf down the remainder of the tray, and after the business of lunch was complete, he took the lead to Secondary and endangered passersby with an animated tail. My own spirits followed in kind. I was looking forward to it a little too much.

SE-2, winding back up after gorging on lunch, left us undisturbed. In the arena, our prolonged absence allowed three days' worth of cruft to accumulate on the holo platform, which scattered to the ground when Basil swept the platform with swipes of his tail. He showed the same amount of care clearing out the folders and documents piled on the control terminal. I picked up a donut box that had emigrated from the platform to the floor and found a lemon jelly of unknown age. I offered it to Mark when he came down to investigate.

"What are you two doing? I thought you were on vacation," he said after declining.

"It's a little project of ours. We're investigating the measure of truth."

"So you came here to use company time and resources for random bullshit?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Sounds fine to me. Turn everything off when you're done." He picked up a breakfast bagel from the floor and left us to our wiles.

The Alie whined to life and flickered the lights dim for a few milliseconds with its waking power hunger. The attached projector warmed up and glowed on a minute later. Basil hopped to the control terminal after the systems came online. A short series of finger-taps on control panel the later, he proceeded to pull up various schematics queried from the Kanid Technologies database. The datasheets cycled through in ordered rows, and after sifting through a few dozen specs, he clicked his tongue and pointed. The projector isolated a spec and zoomed in, exploding the schematic into a multiple viewpoints. Basil whistled and pointed again.

"That's the one, I think! IMD-86A, it looks like? That should be the right one."

It sounded familiar enough. I nodded. "So, do you think you can plug into it?"

"Oh sure. It's a standard protocol and we already have the data transceivers here. Easy-peasy. I just need to get the authorization codes. Hold on, I think Ushi should have them. Lemme ask."

He keyed away at the terminal and wrote a message. "There!" he said, punctuating with a final tap. He hummed and waited for a response, which came not more than five minutes later. He read the reply and groaned.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"He's not sure that I really need the codes I asked for." He snorted and rolled his eyes. "Every time I ask him for something, I swear."

"Can you convince him? It's for something important."

"He already gave it to me. But in return, he wants me to clean up the barracks whenever I get back to Wyvern."

"That can't be that bad, right?"

"You never lived with my brothers."

He tapped in a long series of keys. A program branded with Kanid imprints came up on the projector after the system verified it.

"Ah, there we go," said Basil.

An icon resembling the IMD-86A blinked red a few times and then turned green. After a pause, the program announced it had received a lock and proceeded to filter data onto the screen, a jargon of numbers and values displayed in blue highlights. An interface panel to the right contained a map with a small red blip pulsing its center. Basil squealed and shook my shoulder.

"Everything's working peachy, Ly-lee! Just have to filter the right data and we're set to go."

Then let's go, little guy. I took a bite of the donut. Let's unravel the truth.

"I have Tia's vitals now," he said. He waved his finger excitedly to the readings and chirped. "Hey look! They actually look normal! She seems to be all right now!"

"Yeah? Are you sure?"

"Sure is! The system says the accuracy is ninety-seven percent, so it should be good. She must've got better already. Oh, what a relief!"

"That's great, Basil," I said. And the truth shall set us free, we just have to pry a little further to find it.

Basil hopped onto the projector and surrounded himself in the diagrams. He twirled around and pointed to each figure. "Temperature, thirty-seven degrees. Heart rate, eighty-two BPM. Conditions normal. No system malfunctions. Everything's fine, even the location tracker. Look, there she is! Hi, Tia!"

Just a little further.

"Hi, Tia! Hi, Tia!" he repeated, dancing with glee atop the platform and pointing to the map. "Hello, Tiamat, sleeping good and healthy in Ly-lee's place! All well in Ly-lee's place, right here. Right... here?" He stopped in mid-step and stooped down to study the map. His face twisted into confusion. "Huh?"

Bingo! I took another bite from the donut and broke through the gooey lemon center. It was the warm taste of truth and vindication, and it clung to my tongue in a gelatinous mass. It was delicious. My words came out through the smirk of a winner. "Something wrong, Basil?"

He seemed to disavow my existence. "That's... not Ly-lee's place at all. Wait a minute, I know where that it is. I know where that is! It's--"

His expression contorted into a knowing look of horror.

The look quickly mutated into a beast even more terrifying, and it quickly ate my smile. A deep, unsettling hiss slithered out from between his rows of bared teeth. He doused and lit his next few words in a pure vitriol that burned the ears.

"That... that fucking whore!"

Chapter 4.2

We rode in the same (otherwise empty) car, but sat its length apart. Basil fumed by himself in his seat with his frill around his neck billowing in and out like a steam engine and with his lips too afraid to cover over his teeth. He clenched the seat in front of him with a grip that tore ragged gashes into the cushion. White stuffing bled from the rips and piled onto the seat. I didn't have the nerve to sit near him. He didn't seem to mind.

I thought of maybe talking to him, to try to temper his anger, but he had already gone beyond reason, where words became meaningless. All I heard him utter throughout the trip was a pressurized mix of English and Isian that leaked out in hisses. "She... I can't believe... that stupid... there's no way... I hate..." he drawled in stretches that melted together with random shrieks and squeals. He had skipped over the screaming, the cursing, and the screeching anger, where no vocalization could express the anger. It horrified me because the muted rage is most terrifying by far.

I stayed quiet on the train since there was nowhere to run.

Christ, this wasn't supposed to happen! This wasn't cute, this wasn't benign, and it sure as hell wasn't normal. I truly believed, as I sat trembling in my seat, that scaled ball of fury was preparing for some unspeakable evil. In my hopes, the seat cushion would be the only casualty for the day.

"Basil, listen little buddy," I called out to him when the train stopped and he ran out. "There's a good explanation for everything, right?"

He skipped down the stairs, jumped off the railings halfway down, and landed with a thump. In my attempt to keep pace, I tried calling out a few more times in between breaths. I caught the time before I left the station. It was almost two. The chase back to home was the most exhausting eight minutes of my life.

Basil made a merciful pause at the entrance to the apartments. My lungs gasped for air, and I stooped to rest my hands on my knees. Basil's nostrils flared open and shut and his chest heaved as he snorted in deep breaths, but they clearly weren't from exhaustion. His teeth struck together and made a sinister "chit-chit" that sounded like knives tapping against each other. He stared at the doors. I held out my hand to him and prepared my lungs with enough breath to say something, but a shout disrupted me from above. I looked up and found a fat finger pointed accusingly at me.

"Ivano! I knew it! Ya know the goddamn rules, no pets allowed! What the hell is wrong with you? Get that little shit out of here!"

I waved my hands to my manager in defense and wasted the saved air. "No sir, you don't understand. It isn't that at all. Look, I can explain, just let--"

"What? You listenin' to me? I told you to get that shit out of here. Get it out, now!"

"Sir, please, let me explain."

"Explain? So you wanna do that, huh?" He balanced like a circus elephant on one leg, so that he could remove his slipper from the other, and then shook a shoe at me. "I'll explain you somethin', goddamn asshole."

Utter panic filled me when he stormed into his cave, and when I saw a swinging door where Basil should have been, I made a beeline inside.

I just glimpsed Basil down the hallway when a room one's door suddenly opened in front of me. The landlord lumbered out and gave me a courtesy scowl before he ran down the hall with a slipper waving in his hand. I ran after him and yelled for him to stop, but it fell on numb ears. He caught up to Basil as the Isian was waiting at the elevator. Basil looked surprised when the landlord wedged in front of him and made shooing motions with the slipper right into his face.

"Get out!" the manager yelled. "Get outta here you slimy bastard! Go! Get out, now!"

Basil stepped back and looked confused, initially. He then began to look more and more agitated. His teeth bared, and a growl reverberated from his throat. He widened his stance and arched down. The manager continued to curse and shake the floppy slipper around. My heart threatened to break through my chest and explode.

"Please, sir," I said in a cracked voice. "Just leave him alone. He won't be a problem anymore, I promise you."

He turned to me and roared. "You had ya chance! I'm takin' care of the trash that you won't! I own this goddamn place and I'll have respect!" The slippers he held shook uncontrollably and his veins popped from his arms like blue straws. When he focused back on Basil, he blew up in an incoherent stream of screams and obscenities. The theatrics had gone off the rails, and he lost it. A thick wad of spit struck Basil between his eyes, and sickening spasms struck my stomach when I heard the sharp thwaps of the slipper striking his skull. The landlord wailed on him like a maniac.

I had to brace against the wall when the crash came, a force that shook the hallway and almost knocked me off-balance. When I steadied myself, the landlord was slumping against the wall with his ass to the floor and his eyes rolled over and dazed. A crack on the wall had formed behind his head. He blinked a few times and shook his head, and his eyes flew open when he noticed the sea of teeth that threatened to swallow his entire face. Trembling, he parted his mouth as if to say something, but Basil started first with a pernicious growl that rumbled deep into bone. Sharp claws punctured through the manager's undershirt and buried into his chest. Saliva had pooled inside the lizard's open mouth and streamed down onto his face. The crack slowly crept up to the ceiling.

I watched, paralyzed.

Basil pressed his snout to the landlord's shivering face. The Isian curled back his lips and spoke in a murmur: "Go away."

The landlord nodded without a word. When the elevator doors opened, Basil released him, turned and slapped the landlord on the stomach with his sweeping tail, and went inside. The manager watched and, only when the doors fully closed, bolted back to his room with his only shoe on his feet. The crack grew and bisected the entire hallway when he slammed the door to his room shut.

I took the stairs up. The door to my room was open and made tinny whirrs trying to close itself. I peeked inside and found Basil brooding in a darkened corner of the living room. He lay taciturn with his eyes glaring at the window, not rustling a bit when I snuck in and found the couch. I dared not make eye contact, even though I wanted to look into his unblinking eyes. I dared not speak, even though I wanted say the world to calm him. I dared not move, even though I wanted to run away. These were not the heroics Lyle was designed for. All I could do was wait and let my stomach boil and eat itself. Silence filled those acid-burned holes for the following two hours.

The creep to the half-hour tortured me. The raw nerves that inflamed my body contradicted Basil, who hadn't twitched a muscle. God, who in the hell was supposed to be the emotional wreck here?

Maybe I'm sensationalizing all this, I thought. Yes, maybe that's it. Maybe things won't be so bad. Look at Basil, he doesn't look that angry anymore. Muddled and quiet, yes, but probably not angry. Especially not with his sister. They're twin siblings, for God's sakes, and rather clingy ones at that. Tia will come back, they'll have a little heart-to-heart, and everything will be all right. Just peachy. Nothing to worry about. No, nothing at all. He's good and decent, a friend, everything will be fine. He's good and decent, a friend, everything will be fine. I repeated it in my head as if was the family prayer.

Dread filled me when the clock turned four. I soon heard the tinny clanking of rusted metal from outside the window, my instinct told me to jump into a safe hiding spot. The clanking grew louder and humming soon joined it. The hum became milky and singsong as it neared, a tune to sing while drifting among clouds. The feminine notes of the humming swelled when the clanks stopped and the window opened. The sound compelled me to jump to a safe hiding spot, but my nerves anchored me in for the ride.

A bag was thrown inside. So preoccupied with her humming, Tia seemed blinded to me in her climb in. She closed the window with a flourish that caused her tail to bounce up and tap the ceiling. Her hands lingered on the window pane, and she ended her hum with a sigh and a giggle. She saw me when she turned to pick up the bag and yelped.

"Ly-lee? What are you doing back so early?"

I nodded over to Basil in an attempt to warn her. She didn't understand, so I intensified the motions and wound up cricking my neck. She tilted her head at me, confused.

"Oh, good to see you back, Tia. We missed you all day," a voice called out from the corner of the room. Tia straightened her back and froze. One of her ears twitched toward the voice. Then, her eyes widened in realization. She let the bag slip back to the ground and pivoted to face the voice. Basil roused up from his corner.

"Oh, hey, little brother!" Tia said. "I didn't see you there. How are you? You look good, I think."

A smile wrinkled up her face in patches, the kind you wear when telling your girlfriend how skinny she is.

Basil returned with a smile of his own, one that seemed the entirety of his lips and overflowed his face like kabuki paint. The smile grew more grotesque as he came closer his sister. By the time he was hovering over her face, he looked like someone who had hit jackpot and murdered a hooker in Vegas.

"I'm very good," he said. He looked over Tia's head. "And you Sis, you look good too! Better than this morning, I think. Much better. It's like you couldn't even tell that you were even sick. How did get so much better so fast?"

Tia opened her eyes wider and stepped a bit away from him. Basil's eyelids narrowed, but his smile kept while he waited for his sister's reply. Tia came closer to me tried to crack another smile that fooled nobody. She tittered.

"Heh, funny thing about that," she said. "I was pretty sick this morning, but I suddenly got better after you guys left. But you guys were already gone so..." She batted her eyes away from Basil and laughed again.

"And so you just wanted to go out and meet new friends, or something?" Basil asked.

"Well, I just thought maybe I wanted some air, that's all. That's what Arlene always says right? Get some healthy air for a healthy body? It's good air outside."

"Oh yeah, sure. It smells very good outside."

He circled around Tia and fixated on her face again. Tia backpedalled, and when Basil leaned his snout close to her neck, she struck the couch with a yap. She squeezed her eyes closed and squirmed when Basil dug his nose into flesh of her neck. He wriggled his nostrils after absorbing her smell, saying "Ah, I smell it too. I smell the air. I also smell a lot of other things."

Tia pulled her neck away and left his nose sniffing at dead space. She slid along the couch and stopped against my leg. "Wha--... what do you mean?"

"I smell other things. Good things like nice air and good food and you and Ly-lee." He turned away from us and snorted, a banshee's sneeze that dusted off the coffee table in a cloud of debris. "And I smell bad things too. Dirt and mud and nasty air and honeydew..."

When he turned back, the smile had disappeared.

"And I smell someone I don't like."

Tia pressed harder against my leg and almost tripped over, forcing me to catch her. I felt her heart thrash in my palm, which pressured my hand away when I sat her back up. Back on her feet, Tia just stared at her brother's glower, seemingly frozen and unable to think of what say. His continuing glare, however, finally forced her words out.

"W-well, I think I'm pretty tired now, I think," she said, her nervousness wracking her voice in stutters. "I think I'm going to go... r-rest for a little bit. Yes, I think so. I should go to bed."

She nodded and went around the table. Basil jumped over it to block her.

"Why did you go there?" he demanded.

"I d-don't know... I don't know what you're talking about."

"I know where you went. I have the logs from your tracking module to prove it. I know you lied to me."

"I didn't lie to you."

"Yes you did! And you lied to Ly-lee too! That's even worse!"

Tia glanced at me. I shook my head. I wasn't sure what I was denying.

"Basil, little brother. It's... it's not what you think at all."

"Then what is it? What's so bad that you can't tell me? Are you going to tell me the truth now?"

She parted her mouth to speak but stopped and turned away. She shut her eyes and whimpered.

Basil snorted at her. "It was him, huh?" he said, his voice indignant and accusing. "It is! I smell him all over you. You went out to the zoo just to see that guy. You lied to me and went to see him anyway. You lied to me. To us!"

I could hear her gulp from across the room. Her chest was billowing quick breaths that matched her trembling. The muscles of her face contorted under the stress of her squeezing eyelids, and she began to sniffle. It was something I've seen before. I wanted to call out to her and make it all go away. I wanted to be the hero again. I wanted everything to be all right. Her claws grasped her own forearms and begged for someone to hold onto. I wanted to be the one that held her. Her eyelids puffed and swelled. I wanted to be the one to stop from exploding tears.

But I couldn't be a hero, because when her eyes reopened, it wasn't tears that filled them.

Tia's brows pinched down and formed into a cutting taper that matched the teeth her lips unfurled to bare. She postured her hands and feet to the floor and tensed her body like a rock of muscle, and her tail followed its momentum and struck the wall with a thump. Basil yipped back when she snarled and hardened her voice to say, "So what if I did?"

Basil gaped at her with an open mouth, but his surprise withered after a few seconds. He dropped on all fours and snorted back.

"So it's true, then!" he said. "It was him, you admit it! So what horrible things did you to with him, huh?"

"That's none of your business. I can do what I want. You can't tell me what to do." Her voice birthed a snarl, which would feed and grow on the escalating argument.

"I can't believe you! All this time, I thought you finally got the point. But no, you're just as stupid as I thought you were!"

"Better be stupid than be lonely! Just because you can't sing and find a mate doesn't mean I have to be the same!"

"I... you!"

Tia hopped onto the table with the grace and attitude of the queen of the beasts. She bowed down and sneered at her brother with royal contempt. Basil's jaws snapped together and seemed to want to say something, but he didn't have any words to feed them. He jostled about and shook some out.

"He's not even anything like you!" he cried. "Nothing! He doesn't look like you, he doesn't come from the same place you do, he isn't as smart as you are, and he's ugly! Why do you care about someone like that?"

Spreading her limbs out to balance her entire weight on the table, Tia snarled and flared out her frill. Her tail undulated in front of me like a ball-and-chain looking for a skull to bash in. Her brother returned the stance, and they glared and growled at each other like lions ready to pounce. The anger that bit into their words reverberated in a predatory echo chamber, bouncing and growing by feeding upon each other.

"Stop being so jealous of him, Ba-sil-isk," Tia said, spitting his name out in mutilated bits.

"I won't let you see him again!"

"You can't stop me from seeing him! You can't stop me from seeing anybody!"

She nudged back her feet and tiptoed at the edge of the table. With her head kept low, she arched her back, tucked her tail between her legs, and rose her bottom into the air until her rump was at my eye level. A click of her tongue, and she slammed the tail on the tabletop.

"I can go to any male I want to," she said. She uncovered a teeth-filled smile. "And you know what I'm going to do for them, little brother?"

She niggled her rump a bit higher and, in an act that I could not un-see, whipped her tail out from under her and straight into the air. Clearer than anything I wished to witness, her femininity danced for my attention as she wiggled her hips. My neck didn't allow my head to turn far enough away, and neither could my nostrils open wide enough to let me wheeze out my shock. I dug my feet into the armrest and pushed myself away as far as I could from the sight.

"I'm going to do this, and there's nothing you can do about it!" she yelled.

I guess that's what it's ultimately like to have a close sibling. On the best of days, you had a friend for life, someone that will always be there come hell or high water, and someone that, despite knowing all your most intimate quirks and deviances, will always come to your aid. But on the worse of days, that same person will exploit those same quirks to gouge your nerves, like no one else could, until you begged the demons of hell to drag you into the pits. Tia knew this. She designed her act like a laser-guided missile to strike maximum insult. She was a masterful engineer.

I eyed Basil to focus away from Tia's display. Disbelief ballooned his eyes into huge orbs. He began to shiver. And then his frill flew open and his tail flailed. Soon, his whole body rattled with an earthquake of rage. His anger wheezed in bursts that prevented him from retaining enough air in his lungs to speak.

"You... I... sometimes I wish... sometimes I wish I never had a sister!"

"Sometimes I wish I never had a brother, because then I would still have a mother!"

He screamed.

The cacophony that followed forced me to grip my ears to hollow out the madness, yet it still punctured through and battered my ears. I tucked in my body and dug my head over into my knees in the hope that the ringing would soon stop. It was all black. When I finally looked up, I saw one of the Isians leaning out the window and howling its lungs out. The other was gone. The one remaining one slammed the window back down. It had no collar.

I shot up and ran to the window. "Tia? Tia! Stop, come back!" I yelled. It was the first thing I said since coming back home, hours all too late. I opened the still-quavering window and poked out my head to find her. I called out for her again, but the only response was echoes.

"Oh forget about her!" Basil said. "She's gone. She doesn't want to be here anyway because we're not good enough for her."

I swallowed, desperately trying to get moisture down to my sandpapered throat, only to choke on a ball of air. My back found the wall and I fell down. The truth wasn't supposed to be this way!

Basil continued mumbling.

"Stupid girl. I don't even know what her problem is. He's not even Isian. Stupid Tia."

"We have to find her," I said. "She's out there all alone!"

"Bah, she'll be back. Just wait a few hours. She'll realize how wrong she is and she'll come back feeling sorry and then she'll finally figure out how dumb this whole thing is. I know her."

"But why? What did she do to deserve this?"

"What do you mean 'why?' Wouldn't you? You saw her, always going on and on and on about that guy like he was the best thing in that world. They're not even anything alike!"

"Look Basil... little buddy, I know Sydney's not up to Tia's level, but that's just what he is. You can't possibly take that out against him because of that."

He looked at me in utter puzzlement. "What are you even talking about? Who's Sydney?"

"Sydney, from the zoo." I said. He still didn't seem to understand, so I clarified, "The komodo dragon that Tia's seeing."

"The dragon? That Sydney?" He snorted and thumped his tail to the floor. "Who cares about that stupid lizard? We're talking about Brian!"

---

After I sealed myself in my room to avoid a Basilisk still rambling off his steam, I found myself sitting on the edge of my bed next to the nightstand and staring at a photograph in my hands for, God, it must have been hours. Maybe that's how the blind must feel when science or the supernatural finally blesses them with the gift of vision. They must spend hours just savoring the sights of a world once unknown. I understood it as I sat on the bed and tried to burn the image into my retina. It eventually damaged the details and cooked everything into a homogenous blur, but a single spot of the photo remained raw. I wanted to throw it out, crush it, compost it, make it rot into nothingness. But it lingered there, taunting me with brown eyes and smiling lips.

The dragon was the first thing that had burned away into a crisp.

Dear Tia, I hope you're having a good time at Tetra. You're always welcome back to the here anytime. Yours truly, the Hamilton-Wyvern World Zoo, it said on the back of photo. An intimate message signed off with something like you would find on the letterhead of a subpoena. What a joke.

I stared at the photograph, away from where the lizard lay and to the creature that lurked next to him, something I had been blind to all this time. It hid camouflaged itself as any true predator would, with its khaki uniform blending itself against the dusty grass. All this time, I've been worried about the pussycat when the lion was stalking in the shadows. Homo sapiens brians. All this fucking time.

God! What was going on here? Brian? That Brian? That's her paramour? I've heard fairy tales of love not knowing any boundaries, but I figured the world had since outgrown such juvenility. You know what else have no sense of boundaries? Bullies and stalkers. And I didn't know if I was comfortable living in a world where love is serving thirty-seven years for assault and sexual battery.

Was she really in love with him? Does that work? Can that work? Love between a human and a... lizard? Jesus Christ, my head was reeling just thinking of it. Even considering it. How can such an abomination exist? Maybe it was something in her system--something she ate, some weird hormone, or perhaps the cosmic background radiation. Maybe it was for practical reasons, because if you had no suitors of your own species available, you'd probably be driven to situational interspecies relationships too. Maybe she was under the influence of mind control, that could be it. Brian's after something. What kind of sicko would go after a lizard, anyway? That couldn't be fucking legal. I mean, is it even possible for a human and an Isian to physically--

No! God no! I was over-thinking things; there must have been a reasonable explanation. Brian probably doesn't even know that a female lizard has a crush on him. Young girls go through sweethearts like toiletry, after all. Wipe 'em off and go onto the next sheet. In a week, fleeting love will flush the poor bastard down to the sewer of heartbreak.

I hoped. God, dear God, I hoped.

Chapter 4.3

A photo on my chest, a bottle of sleeping pills on my crotch, and a mean ache in my cortex were the friends that greeted me in the morning. They weren't the best companions could hope for, admittedly, but they were nothing if not reliable. I shucked the bottle away and let the photo slip to the floor. I dug my thumbs into the divots of my temples and mumbled to myself nothing in particular--I just wanted to grumble at something. It was times like this that I regretted not stocking any liquor in the pantry.

I cracked open the bedroom door and peeked out the hall and to the kitchen. Basil was sitting on the table and filling his mouth with a carton of eggs as if they were about to expire. I could hear him purr as he crunched down on his mouthfuls. I crept out but froze when he saw me. He waved and chirped.

"Good morning, Ly-lee!" he called out.

I waited, expecting him rage out and argue something, but he just smiled and went back to his eggs. "Morning Basil," I finally said. "You look good today. Everything's all right?"

"Oh sure! Everything's fine. Nice and fine. It's a good day and I have a bunch of good eggs and no one else to steal them away from me. It's perfect."

"Ah, that's good."

No one else to steal them away from me? I glanced around the kitchen. Nothing out of the ordinary. I went to the living room and found everything undisturbed since last night. I thumped the couch cushions and looked behind it, but nothing jumped out in surprise. I rushed back to the kitchen.

"Basil, where's Tia?"

"What do mean?"

"I mean I can't find her anywhere. Where is she?"

He stuffed in a couple more eggs and said, with a packed mouth, "Well of course she isn't here. She ran away last night, remember? Isn't it great? Now I can eat breakfast without her taking it away from me."

Great? The only thing that was great was the bile crawling up to my throat. Basil yelped when I grabbed his tail.

"We have to go find her, Basil. We have to find her and get her back!"

He pulled his tail out of my hand and shook his head. "Why? She obviously didn't want to be here, so why should we go find and bring her back?"

"Because something might have happened to her! Didn't you say that she'd be back in a few hours last night? Maybe she's out there, hurt or injured or worse. We can't just ignore it and leave her out there by herself!"

"Ly-lee, you know what your problem is? Sometimes you worry about others too much," he said, patting my arm with his tail. "Tia never wants to admit when she's wrong, especially with me. Always thinking she's so smart and so right and knowing what ascorbic acid is and stuff. I bet she's at Summit right now, trying to pretend she really lives there or something. She's fine, trust me."

"Ah... you think so?"

"Sure do. I know her. We'll find her there, she'll figure out how wrong she is, and then we can put this whole dumb thing behind us."

"Okay," I said plaintively. Sigh. He was probably right; it's not like there was anywhere else she could have gone. Let's not get worked up over nothing, Lyle.

I waited for him to finish his eggs. He dumped the last few from the carton into his mouth, and after he gulped down the final bits, he hopped off the table and grasped my hand.

"Well, let's go to now," he said. "It's a good day ahead!"

He hummed and led to the station, pausing occasionally to skip over a pothole or a puddle. Leashed to him, I paced behind in quiet obedience. We saw the hot dog vendor, still sleeping underneath the shade of his cart's umbrella and snoring, when we arrived.

"I wonder why they make hot dogs." Basil said as we went up the stairs. "They should do hot cats. That would be delicious."

The crowded yielded and allowed us to cut in front of a line to the train. Basil took a seat near the windows and contented himself by humming and poking at the graphics that gushed on the windows. I noticed the passenger that had settled in front of us. He spent a good chunk of the trip trying to stuff the filling back into his seat, which was falling out from pair of gashes in the cushion. He eventually sighed and gave up. I tried not to make eye contact with him when we got off at Summit. At the edge of the station, Basil paused, placed a claw on my shoulder, and pointed into the courtyard.

"That's where she is," he said.

"You think so?"

"Yep. She's in that tree. Come and I'll show you."

Right, the tree. Of course.

He took off ahead and ran to the maple. I didn't make an effort to tail close to him because, though Basil himself may have been a chipper--if smug--bastard today, his sister gave no such guarantees. And frankly, I didn't care for another front-row encore of yesterday's performance. I gave the Basil a couple meters of berth as he whistled at the tree. The tree ignored him. After he pattered a dozen more calls with no answer, he sat down and frowned.

"Something wrong?" I called out.

He scratched his chin and said, "Hmm. Hold on."

He rose his tail up to the side of the tree and, after a preparatory waggle, slammed it into the maple. A meaty thud crashed from the trunk, and pieces of bark exploded like shrapnel. I shielded my eyes from the blast, only for falling branches and leaves to conk my head. The injured maple shivered for a few seconds and reclaimed its arboreal dignity.

Basil clicked his tongue sharply. "She's not up there."

I brushed away the debris from my head and clothes. "I could see that. Where else could she be?"

"She's probably inside now. I mean, she can't just stay here all day. It's time for work and everything." He chirped and clapped his hands. "She's in the labs. We'll find here there, I'm sure!"

Right, in the labs. That's where she must be.

He took off into the Spire and left me to trail behind him again. I milled around the lobby a bit and went to socialize with Aimee, but she only acknowledged me with a nod since she was already tending to guests. Undeterred, I went to the water fountain and admired the dancing water. I fished in my pocket for some change to toss in, but only pulled out lint. I balled it up and threw it into the pool. I considered talking to some random person in the lobby, but no one seemed to appreciate such solicitation.

Eventually, I ran out of things to do and wandered to SE-2. I saw Basil atop the holo platform scratching his head. He pried around the device, circling it, peeking underneath, and thumping it with his hands, and then sauntered up to my station. On his way up, he glanced behind every few steps to ensure he didn't miss anything.

"She's not here either," he said to me.

I whispered, "Are you sure? Did you look everywhere here?"

"Yeah, she's not in the labs," he said, ignoring my motions imploring him to keep his voice down. "I don't smell her either."

"Basil, I think we might have a problem here."

"What? There's no problem. You know, I bet she's in Sigma right now. She's not using this lab because she knows we'd be here. That's it! I'll go check there right now."

Right, in Sigma. That must be it.

Again, he ran off without me. I attempted to follow him, but an arm shot out and blocked me at the exit. Mark was staring accusingly at me.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Just going to Sigma, that's all. Nothing important."

"Eh? What business could you possibly have there?"

"We just have to find something. You know... a part. We need a part from there."

He shook his head and grabbed my shoulders. "Nope, not going to happen. The bastards have guns there. You won't make it past the first fuckin' checkpoint." He pulled me back to my station and plopped me onto the chair. "Besides, you got some damned work to do, Mr. I-Just-Took-A-One-Week-Vacation. Fucking management is getting spooked with Kanid, and you gotta start earning your keep just like the rest of us. I don't want to have to fire a bunch of poor bastards again."

Mark patted my shoulder and left when I nodded. Just as well, I suppose. Sigma, with its hardened security, would be capable of containing the twins should they decide to explode. This was something I could sit out and let the grunts tackle. I deserved to have a little vacation, goddammit.

But a gadfly rumored me that maybe Tia wasn't at Sigma at all. What if she really wasn't? No, that wasn't right, where else could she be? I checked the doors periodically--they remained sealed. Basil hadn't come back in failure, which meant he surely found his sister. They were probably reconciling or screaming at each other as we speak. After all, there's no reason for him stay there for so long by himself. Ah, there was nothing to be worried about. Everything's all right!

I played hooky and shaved a few minutes off for lunch so I could be first in the cafeteria. I slid three trays end-to-end across the counter-top and filled them with as much morsels that the attendants let me get away with. It was grab-bag day, where all the days' cuisine melted together into an unnatural orgy of food. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday, all crammed into together on the trays, one right after another. The cashier shot a look at me like I was some fat-ass loon, but fuck him. I recruited a couple of other patrons to help carry the trays to a table, and then waited. My lunch-mates should be here any time now.

If there was one thing I learned I could rely on, it was the consistency of the Isian appetite--I could plan my crops around it. Sure enough, one of them arrived soon after. It was Basil, who was carrying a tablet. The device occupied his eyes, so he navigated through the crowd with flickering ears. He perked his attention from the tablet and scampered over when I called out to him. I tried to find the other twin but came up empty. Basil sat down on the table and started nosing into the food.

"Where's Tia?" I asked him. "She's coming to eat, right?"

"Nope. She's not here."

"What? I thought you said she'd be in Sigma. What were you doing all this time?"

"Well, Sigma's big and has lots of places and stuff to hide in. I had to make sure. Turns out she wasn't there at all. Oh, are those Wednesday Wieners? I love those!"

A familiar groaning boiled from my stomach. It started digesting before I had even swallowed any food.

"You didn't find her at all? You mean to tell me she really ran away somewhere? Oh, God!"

Basil nudged into one of the trays with his snout to indulge his nose. He licked his lips and straightened up in his seat. Not seeming to understand--or care about--the circumstances, he scooped up a globule of food and let it slide into his mouth from above.

I straightened my voice louder. "Basil? Are you listening to me? Tia's missing! She's gone! What are we going to do now?"

He swallowed and shook his head. "I said that she wasn't here. I didn't say that I didn't find her."

"What?"

He turned his tablet and showed me a set of tabulated data that seemed familiar. "Well, after I spent a couple of hours trying to find her the regular way, I remembered your idea. I could just that tracking module in her collar, right? It's so simple! All I had to do plug back into it and," he pointed to an overhead map on the screen, "find her right there. See? There she is, no surprises. Isn't technology great, Ly-lee?"

The red blip underneath his finger pulsed for attention atop the cryptic map. I couldn't make out what it begged me to notice as the myriad of intersecting lines, entwining and choking the map like a spider's web, did nothing but confuse me. Basil noticed my puzzlement and tapped excitedly on the display.

"She's back home! She probably waited for us to leave before going back because she was too ashamed to see us. But she's there right now, just waiting and probably thinking how wrong she is. Look at that. Her vitals seem kinda off too, maybe because she's actually sick now from being out in the cold for so long. Ha! That's funny."

Right, she was back home, obviously! I sat back and sighed, in relief or exhaustion, I don't know. Basil chirped and waved his soiled hands at me.

"Anyway, we probably shouldn't keep her waiting and all that. Maybe we should go and see her?"

"Let's finish the rest of the day, first. There's lots of work to do after the vacation and all, and we have to be responsible."

Responsible nothing--this was fucking Secondary. I just wanted to give Tia the maximum amount of time to cool off.

"Besides," I said, "we have lunch to eat."

"Oh sure! That's right. Say, what's this other tray for, anyway?"

"That was for Tia. But I guess it's no one's now."

He thought about it a moment and then dumped the contents of Tia's tray into his own. "Since she isn't here," he said, "I guess it's my job to eat her food for her too. You know, to be responsible."

---

The local grocer had received a new shipment of expired produce that day, which was a good fortune for us. I decided to make a stop there after work, mostly as a reward for Basil's temperament. It must have been a treat for him to revel in that heap of weeks-old cantaloupe peaking over his head in fleshy wonder. He stared, dazed, with his mouth parted and tongue hanging and then turned to me with a look of longing. He dove straight into the pile after receiving a nod to go ahead. Next to the cantaloupes, I paid my attention to the honeydew selection. I prepared a mental list of excuses in case the staff badgered me about the Isian currently plunging his head into the cantaloupe pile, but all I encountered was a kid with a broom who glared at me for daring to come in and making him re-sweep the aisles. I palmed and massaged the honeydew melons and managed to find a couple of decent size that weren't hemorrhaging nectar from sores. I bagged them and waited for Basil to find his ambrosia.

The honeydews were peace offerings, or to be more precise, insurance. One thing the Isians taught me about the fairer sex: the best way to a woman's heart was through her stomach. A full Isian is a happy Isian, and a happy Isian is much less likely to hurt you. A sound premise.

Basil came out with a pair of fruit in his arms (likely the largest he could find). He continued cradling them on our way home, seeming like the happiest lizard in the world. This was the same bastard that almost killed my landlord just yesterday. Joy is infectious, but my inoculations from last night's virulence still held strong.

"You like those cantaloupes?" I asked to test his mood.

"Sure, yes, sure! They're great. Thanks a lot, Ly-lee!"

"You're welcome. You know, I was a little worried that you'd still be angry."

"Eh? Why would I be angry?"

"I was afraid that you might still be upset from the fight last night."

"No, no, no, no." He shook his head insistently. "That wasn't a fight, that wasn't a fight at all. We were arguing, not fighting. There wasn't any blood or broken bones or anything like that. We didn't fight."

"Well, your argument then. I was just worried that there might be still some hurt feelings still."

"The only one that should be hurt is Tia for being so stubborn all the time. We wouldn't have to argue if she stop lying and going to see weird guys all the time. Hey, could you hold this for me, Ly-lee?"

He handed me one of his cantaloupes.

"You really hate Brian, don't you?" I asked.

"I don't hate him. I just hate him going near my sister. He has no business with her, that's all."

"Ah."

He wrapped his tail around his body so he could grasp its tip with a free hand while he held the cantaloupe in the other. He rubbed the underside of the tail on the surface of the melon as if he were polishing a bowling ball. Every so often, he would pause to sniff the cantaloupe and then continue rubbing it.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm putting my scent on it."

"From your tail?"

"Of course, silly. That's where my scent glands are. There's no other way to do it. This way, Tia knows it's mine and won't eat it."

"She doesn't even like cantaloupes."

"She probably didn't eat all day. If she's hungry enough, she'll eat it, and then she'll say she didn't know it was mine or something. Now, she can't make that excuse." He sniffed the melon. "Oh yeah, this one really smells like me now. Okay, can you give me the other one?"

We traded cantaloupes and he started odorizing the other fruit. I sniffed the one he gave me. It smelled faintly of ammonia. I wasn't sure if it was Basil or the industrial pesticides. He retook the melon with a thanks and a chirp when he finished.

"So Basil," I started, hesitating a bit before bringing forth the effort and asking, "do you guys argue a lot about her seeing other guys?"

"Kinda. Sometimes? Not a lot. But it sometimes happens. I think the last time was with Omy. That's before we came to Summit, though."

"Omy? Someone from Wyvern?"

"Yeah, one of my brothers. Well, used-to-be brother. I didn't get along with him that well. Neither did Kappa. Or Zeta. Or Nu. Or... actually, he didn't get along with any of us, really."

"So she was interested in him and you guys fou--, I mean, argued?"

"Sorta, but the other way around. Omicron really liked Tia. Really, really liked. And she didn't seem to mind it either. That's the problem. She kept on lying about how she didn't do anything, but still went with him all the time in secret. Omy then went around bragging about how he had Sis and how she was going to be his mate and all that. He always sang to her every day. I didn't like it and I got into an argument with Tia about it. But she didn't listen. She never does. You've seen it, right? How she just lies to me and you whenever she sees someone she thinks is pretty."

"Yeah."

"It got pretty bad. Ushi saw it and was going to separate all three of us into different parts of Wyvern if we didn't make up with each other. Tia was going to, obviously, but Omy didn't. I didn't either. So then, he started following me around and calling me names and saying how she was going to mate with Tia and how I couldn't anything about it. Oh, I was this close to beating him up. But my brothers stopped me from doing it. I always wish that I did, though."

"You did a good thing, Basil. You were being the bigger person. You settle your differences with words, no violence."

"Yeah, that's what everyone says. What they don't tell you is that words don't always make you feel any better. So I just had to try to ignore him for weeks while he kept on picking on me. Tia didn't do anything to stop him. Maybe she never knew, I never told her about it."

"What happened between them?"

"Well, I guess he got bored with Tia and tried to go after Kidna. After that, we never saw him again."

"What happened?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. No one ever talks about it."

Near the entrance to the apartments, in the distance and just below the landlord's balcony of terror, a pair was in the middle of what seemed like a heated argument. I groaned when I saw the sight, awash with a feeling of dread, and the familiar blaring of my manager from halfway across the block proved my intuition correct. He drilled onto a newbie I wasn't familiar with. The poor sap leaned back into the railings with nowhere else to go as the manager spat and screamed at him. The guy saw me and looked on with an eyes-wide S.O.S., but all I could do was mouth a silent, "Sorry buddy." Not caring to witness the rest of the hazing, I tried to slip into the building unnoticed, but something grabbed my arms and jerked me back out. My landlord stared me down like a hyena in the middle of bloodlust.

"You! This ain't your fuckin' business! Ya wanna get your skull broke in, is that it?"

I was about to blurt out a random item from my long list of excuses, but then his eyes popped open and he jerked backwards until his girth slammed against the railing alongside the newbie. With the manager shaken off his perch, the other tenant took advantage of the opening and ran inside. I brushed off my arm and waited, conditioned to expect another of his outbursts, but he just shuddered and stared off to my side. I glanced down and noticed Basil, who cocked his head in curiosity. He chirped at the manager.

"Hi!" he said.

The manager shrieked and smashed through the doors, which squeaked and swayed but refused to close shut again. Basil gave me questioning look and asked, "What's with him? Did I say something wrong?"

"That's just his way of saying hello. He's weird like that, so don't worry about it too much."

The closer we got to my apartment room, the further Basil's tongue hung out from his mouth, streaming out a growing river of saliva. By the time we came our room, he had the melons pressed up to the sides of his open muzzle so he could scrape his teeth at the rind, the closest he could get short of eating the thing. Once inside, he settled on the couch and hugged his melons like he was making out with a lover. I settled the bag of honeydew on the coffee table and called out for Tia. No reply came, so I called out again. Nothing. Curious.

I looked at Basil for help, but he didn't seem any more informed. I went through the apartment, the kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom, and rummaged underneath every nook and cranny I can remember, all the while calling out her name. I came out with nothing except confusion. Back in the living room, Basil was staring out the window with his melons.

"I thought you said she was home," I said. "I looked everywhere but can't find her."

He clacked his teeth together and mumbled, "I could've have sworn she was. Hmm?" He turned around and held his melons out for me to take. "Ly-lee, could you hold on to these for me for a little bit?"

"What's going on?"

He crawled outside after opening the window and poked his head back in to say, "I'm sure she's around here, and I'm going to try to find her. The tracking beacon doesn't lie. Wait here, be back soon." He shut the window and rattled down the fire escape.

I united Basil's cantaloupes with the honeydews and slouched onto the couch. Waiting was easy enough, I supposed. Surely, the tracker wouldn't lie. It couldn't lie. If you can't trust technology that Uncle Sam overpays for, then what can you? All there was to do was wait for Basil to hunt down his prodigal sibling, and this whole chapter of life would end, perhaps with a fancy one-liner from Twain or Wilde. Maybe sometime along, for the abridged version, we can just condense the whole thing into a footnote. No one ever reads those things.

Right, just wait for it. She's just a silly Isian lizard indulging in damned silliness. Hormones are a goddamned thing--I know, been there, done that. But you grow out of it, and we were all adults here, apes and reptiles and all. After this, no more wingless Indonesian dragons, no more zookeepers, and certainly no more inappropriate cross-species infatuations. I took the honeydew melons and nestled them in my lap so they wouldn't bruised sitting on the table. I dozed off.

Maybe half an hour later, the grating of the windows roused me back up. An Isian was climbing through the window, and, reflexively, I stood up and called out, "Tia?" The lizard turned and looked at me with a perturbed face. Not her.

"So you found her, right?" I asked Basil.

He held up a black band looped around one of his talons.

"I found it around a cat on the roof," he said. "It didn't taste very good."

I sat, trying to process his words. The meaning was evident, but I refused to accept the conclusion. I hugged melons, and for the life of me, I couldn't think of anything to say. Basil, in a calm that flouted against his Isian nature, finally said:

"Ly-lee, I think we have a problem."

Chapter 4.4

I fried cantaloupes for the morning. I skinned them, cubed them, and lit them up in a hissing pool of oil. All the eggs were gone, leaving me nothing else to cook for breakfast but cantaloupes. They had threatened to spoil, orphaned among a pile of dust bunnies in a corner of the room, so I fried them. Frying makes anything edible. I fried them because I had nothing else to fry, and not frying something would allow me to have time to panic. I liked frying cantaloupes. I couldn't give a flying fuck about fried cantaloupes.

I prepped the second batch of cubes into the pan and went to the living room to check on Basil again. It was the twelfth or thirteenth since last night. No change. He remained, sitting in the exact same place in the exact same position with the exact same expression, clutching the exact same pair of honeydews in his arms. His eyes didn't dare to stray away from the window. The night before, I told him he should get some rest. He refused, saying, "I should stay up, just in case she comes back, so I can let her in." I doubt he slept at all, and I didn't do much better.

"Hey Basil, want something to eat?" I called out to him. He didn't respond, so I asked again. He perked up his ears and blinked, but his gaze didn't waver.

"Huh?" he said.

"I made some breakfast. Do you want some?"

"Not really."

"You haven't eaten anything all night. You should get a little bite, it'll be good for you."

"I don't feel like it."

He jostled the melons around and said nothing else. I went back to frying cantaloupes. Eventually, I ran out of fleshy cubes to toss into the oil, so I waited until the last batch vulcanized into bricks of carbon floating in a searing pool of mush. When the pan cooled and became sedentary, I tossed the junk into the sink.

I finally managed to persuade him to leave the window by lying. I told him I was "positive" his sister was at Summit, just happy, dandy, and waiting. It took a qualification of "absolutely" coax an embryonic smile to form on his lips, which was all I could hope for. He trailed behind me with the melons and said not a word during the journey, silence that allowed me to harvest plenty of extra time to worry.

Lord, what have I done? All that was supposed to happen was a little tail wagging, a stuck-up tongue or two, and a few hours of indignation. How was I to know that a goddamned blip on a wireframe map could have summoned about a demon from one of the rungs of Hell? Was that my intention? Of course not. That wasn't mine to do. All I wanted was a peace of mind, a way to protect them. That was how I rationalized it. It was of noble intent. I didn't mean for it to happen like this. I just wanted everyone to be happy.

What if something did happen to her? Out in the world by herself facing down the horrors of the world? Kidnapped by a bunch of thugs looking for a quick buck? Gunned down by a trigger-happy cop? She could be waiting to be sold to the highest bidder in some third-world hellhole on the other side of the globe, or being vivisected in a laboratory somewhere, or rotting in a storm drain, rats feasting on her corpse.

No! It can't be like that, you fucking idiot! It's just... it can't!

I fished into my pocket and stroked Tia's collar, an item of part nostalgia and part idol. Maybe rubbing it could convince me that everything would be better. It helped to keep me sane. I tried not thinking of a side effect of bringing it along: if the people at Wyvern were tracking it, they wouldn't be the wiser to Tia's disappearance.

I even considered contacting Arlene and telling her what happened. The idea survived for a few minutes before I banged my head against the train seat repeatedly until it died.

Basil hugged in his honeydews and shambled his way to the labs, his head stooped down and his eyes pointed in a singular and unblinking direction, and he brushed through the crowds as if they were ghosts. I followed him until I heard Aimee call out my name. I sighed and came to her. Basil continued on without me.

"Ah, long time no talk, Mr. Ivano," Aimee said.

"Yeah, a little."

"I was starting to wonder if you were avoiding me. Perhaps you found someone else? Some younger model who has stolen your affections? Please deny it Mr. Ivano. It would devastate me if you started seeing someone still under manufacturer's warranty."

"Nothing but hurt and lizards, Aimee. You know how it is."

"Of course. I could only imagine how it must be being the caretaker of our little Isian friends here. Surely, you must be exhausted. By the by, where is Ms. Tiamat? I have not seen her in the past couple days."

"Well..." I swallowed a painful gulp. "Poor thing came across a nasty bug and has been in bed for a couple days. Isian fevers don't joke around."

"Is it serious? Perhaps I should contact Ms. Neuman for assistance." She moved to her computer, but I grabbed her hand before she could tap anything into it.

"Oh no. That won't be necessary, Aimee. Really, it's just a minor cold. She'll be fine in a day or two, no need to worry Arlene's pretty little head."

"I thought you said it was a fever," Aimee said, brushing away my grip.

"Cold, fever, same thing right?"

"Not at all."

"Well, put them together and they even out, right?"

I attempted a joking chuckle directed a contraption whose humor wasn't a standard feature. She looked at me and shrugged her gray, rounded shoulders.

"I suppose you would be the expert on it," she said and sat back down. She wiggled a finger at me and smiled. "Regardless, I wish to say that I am honestly proud of you and your work with the Isians. If I did not know any better, I would suggest that you were part Isian yourself."

Yes, I'm so good, I completely lost one of them. That's ability, right there.

"Thanks Aimee. It means a lot, really."

She reached up and patted my shoulder. "Do keep it up, my good friend. Not many can be trusted with thirty million dollar assets."

What?

I gripped onto the edge of the desk and leaned in, thinking I might have heard wrong. "What do you mean, 'thirty million dollar assets?'"

"The twins, of course. The company took out an insurance policy for them valued at that amount. Quite a neat sum, all said and done."

Heat drained from my face and numbed it cold. "You're telling me that they're worth fifteen million dollars apiece?"

"Oh, not at all. The brother is worth ten million, and the sister is twenty."

"What? Why is Tia worth more?"

"She is female, of course. Her reproductive qualities are simply more valuable."

Ah. Poor Basil. Sad to think that not having the gift of a uterus made him half an Isian.

Wait, poor Basil? Poor fucking me! Twenty-fucking-million dollars? Twenty million! Gone! Fuck me!

With nothing of worth left to say, I thanked Aimee for her support and staggered my way to work. It's always a pleasure conversing with her. She gave the best reassurances in life, more than you could possibly want. Really. I was feeling better already.

Company policy forbade good feelings and kind words though, so to chase them away, I burned my retinas with my terminal screen until my vision bled into doubles. I closed my eyes, jabbed my skull a few times to jiggle the images back into place, and continued working without a break. I was willing to work straight until the end of time if I meant that I didn't have to deliberate on Aimee's compliments.

A slap on my back interrupted my enthusiastic work ethic.

"Woah, calm down there," Mark said. "You're gonna break something."

I took a moment to slap the swimming schematics out from my eyes and grumbled at the inconvenience of having to set them back in later. "Just trying to make the money," I replied.

"I hear ya. Hey, maybe you can give that lesson that scaly friend of yours over there." He pointed to Basil, who was sprawled on the platform, his head resting atop the melons and his eyes open in slivers. "He's been like that all damned morning. We pay these things, don't we? What the hell for?"

"He's had a rough couple of days. Let him be."

"Buddy, we all have bad fucking days. You have bad days, I have bad days, that asshole that lives across the street and throws tomatoes at my windows have bad days. But we go and do what we gotta do, you know? Because people don't give a shit that you're having a bad day. They just want results, and they get on my case when that doesn't happen. You understand?"

"I'll talk to him."

"You go ahead and do that. I've got a meeting with one of those mucky higher-ups about some bullshit. Want some coffee?"

I declined, and he patted a manly goodbye on my back. I stared back at the screen again and tried to recapture the working groove, but the glowing lines and drawings refused to stick to my eyes. I glanced at Basil. Like a crumpled ragdoll, his limbs splayed over the platform and languished. The melons were propping his head up--otherwise it seemed like it would have dropped to the center of the earth. He stared at nothing through eyelids that didn't seem able to decide whether they should remain awake or go to sleep, so they compromised in the middle and made him look dead. I tried retaking the screen again and then went back to the lizard. This alternated a few times before I slammed my fist onto my keyboard in frustration, got off my seat, and went down. Basil didn't seem to notice when I came up next to him.

"Hey, little guy," I said. "Doing all right?"

No response.

"Are you hungry? Maybe you should get something to eat. What would you like? It's Mexican Tuesday, so that means they have tamales. Let's go, it'll be good." I kneeled to his eye level and tapped him lightly on his forehead. "Basil? Tell me something, would you?"

He just stared through me. I looked all around and tried to rustle his attention, but whatever his eyes were plugged into, it wasn't his mind. I stroked his neck. The tips of my finger brushed on his scales and reeled back in reflex. He felt like he had truly died. I shook the chill off my hand and backed up. The Isian remained motionless, either not knowing or not caring what I did.

Finally, as if the stimuli just reached his cold, reptilian brain, he grounded his chin across the melons a few millimeters left and right, forming the lowest semblance of a head shake. He returned back to lifelessness as tersely as the gesture would allow.

There wasn't anything left I could really do, so I said, "I'm worried about her too, Basil, I really am. But we'll find her. I know it. I promise. She'll be back, okay? Everything will be all right."

I patted his side and, reluctantly, turned away and started up the stairs. His voice interrupted me in mid-step, and I hurried back down. I miscounted the last step and almost stumbled to the ground in my rush back to the holo platform. His head rose from the honeydew.

"I think I'd like to get some food, actually," he said.

"Sure, little guy. What'd you like? Tacos? Tamales? Tortas? Anything you want."

Signs of life seemed to flow back into his body as he pondered his choices. "Do they have those little rolly things with the meat inside?"

"Tauqitos? Sure, I'll get you a bunch."

He clicked his tongue and sat up. "Yeah, and I'll have a bunch of the others too, they sound good. Oh, oh! Do they still have meatloaf and stuff from yesterday? That also sounds good right now."

"Yes, whatever you want!"

"And meatpies, and the hot dogs, and the pizzas but without those nasty green things on it, and those little things with the tasty red things in the middle, and that cobbler stuff that's made of pits or peaches or something, that sounds good, and maybe that bread stuff, but maybe put the meatpies in them, that'll be great!"

He stood up on his hind legs and waved his arms around at each new food item. I smiled as he rattled everything under the sun, not bothering to remember them all. Getting every random bit in the cafeteria would be good enough for his palette. When he finally finished, he was in short breaths. I laughed.

"Well, would that be it, sir?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said after thinking for a moment. "I think that should be enough."

"All right, whatever you want. I'll put them onto trays and bring some for you. We can eat the rest in the cafeteria."

"No, no, not trays. Put them in boxes or something so we can save them."

"Don't you want to eat them now?"

He shook his head. "They're not for me."

"Then who?"

"It's for her." He sat down onto his rump and gazed out into the distance with a furrowed look. "She'd be very hungry if she comes back, I think."

It took me a moment to realize what he meant. Just as quick as it burst in, his enthusiasm fizzled away, and he slumped back down onto his stomach and snuggled his head between the two melons. He shut his eyes and sniffled.

I stood by in the hopes he would say something again. But he didn't.

"All right, whatever you want," I said quietly. I left the labs.

I thought of going to Aimee and gather up some goods from her desk, but I didn't feel like interacting with her again. Then, I considered the cafeteria, but I didn't think I could've stomached the smells and the grease and the people. I didn't care to figure out anywhere else in the damn place to get food. With nothing else to turn to, I ended up watching the water fountain from a bench bolted to a pillar in the lobby. It gave me time to wallow in my own predicament. Self-pity without the guilt. You can do it so often in so little time.

What made you think it was such a good idea to tell Basil that his sister was eloping? I berated myself. Goddamn fucking idiot. Had some debilitating mental sickness struck me? Did I take a drink out of the dumbshit bowl and not even know it? There wasn't an excuse.

Thud. It felt relieving, the pillar clanking against my skull.

I thought about it some more. What's wrong with you? No, how about what's wrong with that psychotic lizard friend of yours? What the hell is his problem anyway? What, indeed. I've met some overprotective brothers before in my juvenile dating life. It's a normal thing, a decent thing, and I could respect that. But Basil was on another level of crazy. Was it really necessary for him declare war on the entire male sex on behalf of his sister's honor? Really? You are not your sister's personal chastity belt, little guy. God, it wasn't necessary to murder that poor seat!

Thud.

His sister? Tia. It's Tia! This wouldn't be even an issue if she would keep her hormone-soaked tail down! I fancy myself as being open-minded, but this stretched my tolerance to the breaking point. I had a hard enough time coming to terms with the komodo dragon, but a human? Are you fucking kidding me? How unnatural, how... ghastly. It's the hormones. Hormones that drove her brother sociopathic and made her insane. Far be it for me to question female biological processes, but insanity was the only explanation I could think of considering her infatuation with that zoo-keeping bastard.

Thud.

An epiphany. Brian! He's it! That's the key. This is all him! If that smug motherfucker hadn't come into the picture, none of this would have happened. That asshole and his tall, muscular frame and his dark, exotic complexion and his deep panties-dropping voice and his pure goddamned sexiness! Fucking Brian and his stupid gorgeousness. It's his goddamned fault that he's too sexy to attract just members of his own goddamned species!

Fucking Brian!

Crack!

The last hit knocked the sight out of me for a few seconds and forced my eyes to wince in pain. I massaged my head with one hand and thumbed my temple with the other to rub back in the senses. Fucking hell. For a few moments after I opened my eyes, all I could see were vague, dark shapes, as if I managed to knock light and color out from the world. One of these shapes stood in the corner of my vision, and it took a couple of seconds for it to form a creature I recognized somewhat. He looked at me with his hands clenched into a ball and seeming like he was a witness to a beating. Wasn't far off, I guess.

"Sophos?" I said. I sat straight and tilted my head to see him better and to make sure I got the right name.

He jerked up as if my voice was the most surprising thing in the world. He closed his eyes and ballooned his cheeks with a series of huffs, like pregnant women practice on, until they flushed red. A final exhale later, he opened his eyes, tapped his hands on his thighs, and came over in deliberate steps.

"Sophos, right?" I asked again.

He stared and his cheeks became redder, and then like a punctured balloon, his words burst out.

"Ah yes! Yes! You didn't forget my name! Aha! I'm glad I remained important enough for you to remember it. That's good, that's great. Ah, aha! Where are my manners, it's not all about me. How are you doing, Mr. Ivano?"

"Please just call me Lyle," I said, digging my thumbs deeper into my head to nullify the loudness. "I'm doing... okay."

"Okay? Good okay? Good. Glad to hear. You know, we haven't met in a while, and I figure, with all the that's been happening with Kanid and the depression going around, you'd be swelled up into it too. But it's good to know you're still going strong. Resiliency."

"I guess that's because I've never heard of anything Kanid did, so I can't be depressed about it."

"Never heard? It's been everywhere on the company blotters. Haven't you kept up?"

"Can't say I have, nor can I say that I care to."

He chuckled in squawks that wouldn't be out of place in a chicken house. "Ah yes, you'd be occupied with more pressing concerns, of course. How's your little beasties handling? Giving you more trouble?"

"A little, actually."

"Nothing that you can't handle right? I'm sure you'll be fine. But just in case you need it..." He bent spread his legs apart and leaned his body to the side so that an outward-bent knee supported his posture. He flexed his forearm up and pumped his biceps for me to see. "Just gimme a call and I'll help you sort them out. I could be a sidekick. Look at this, I'm not afraid!"

"That's... nice, thanks. I appreciate it. Look, Sophos, I'd love to chat a little more, but I've just been... swamped. You know?"

With his arms still pumped up, his eyes widened with realization. "Oh! Oh, of course," he said, letting go of the posture and then brushing his pants. "I understand. Yeah, we've been busy at Sigma too. It's been hell since they've started aggressively pushing our deadlines. That's corporate war for you, though. It's like a zoo."

While his words idled in my brain waiting to be processed, something happened. Steel from my headache struck the wallowing flint of his words and sparked a realization. That was it! "The zoo!" I blurted. "The goddamned zoo! That's where she is, of course!"

Sophos gave me a questioning look. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

"That's it!" I said. "Thanks, my man! You're a genius! "

"Uhh... yes? Oh, you're welcome," he said with no small amount of confusion.

I laughed and squeezed him with a quick hug. With my destination in place, I bolted across the lobby and towards the doors. "I owe you one, buddy! Remind me and I'll get you some beers!"

"Oh, sure!" I heard the reply. "Maybe next weekend? Friday? Saturday? How about..." His voice trailed and then stopped altogether when I barged out the doors. I made my way as fast as I could to North Station.

---

My lungs screamed its breath away in wheezes when I finally rested underneath the shade of Bazaar the Bear. I didn't stop beforehand to chart a path through the fucking maze of the metro system or bother asking the attendant bots for an itinerary; I switched over from the N-Freights, connected to a general metro line, and hurried off onto the first station that I thought was close enough to the zoo. It turned out I was about a dozen blocks away, and no idea came to mind except to run the remainder. Only after keeling over with my shoulder supported on the statue did I notice a train coming into a Wyvern-Hamilton stop just outside the entrance. Somehow, I really didn't mind.

The admittance attendant glared at me through the plastic partition when I stuffed all Arlene's leftover bills from Rosaria into his booth, no doubt cussing at me underneath his breath. I didn't even stop to have pity that a robot hadn't yet replaced his HELP Act beneficiary ass. I plowed through the crowds blocking the entrance to study their maps and went knee-deep into the heart of the zoo, past the damn flamingos and otters and fucking meerkats, before I stopped and thought where I actually wanted to go. Where the hell would she be in this damned place?

Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe it was low blood sugar from lack of food, or maybe a combination, but I couldn't infer the answer for the longest time. I spun around in place like a drugged ballerina squinting at the odd ends of the world to try to find an inspiration. I found a child holding a green, stuffed crocodile from the gift shop, and it struck me. I ran to the reptile exhibits.

Serpent Isle, Camp Crocodilia, Tortoise Turf... ah, the Land of Lizards. She was somewhere here, among the scaly and cold-blooded. I could feel it. Though, walking past each hideous iguana, monitor, agamid, or whatever the hell else was here, I couldn't understand why she would want to associate with such a place. Memories are fleeting things.

I scanned each exhibit for signs of a white-and-blue lizard, stopping twice as long at the komodo pen. No dice. I exhausted a half hour combing through the rest of the place and then looped back to the entrance and started over. I was prepared to repeat it all day if I had to. I wasn't leaving until I had her.

I got back to the desert iguana when, just then, a color caught my eye. It was the hue of camouflage, designed to mingle unnoticed to the world, but to my eyes, it burned like a roman candle. It came out of a service building beyond the public grounds and carried a bucket. The nametag it wore glinted brightest in a single word: "Brian."

Some Neanderthal portion of my brain awoke when it recognized him and bludgeoned a reflex to the rest of my body. I pounced at him like a cheetah to a gazelle. Or a crow to a carcass. Or a kitten to a ball of yarn, fuck, I don't know. But watching him shirk with that chiseled jaw opened in surprise energized me. I relished his reticence. I ate it up. So much so, I might have cried out his name like a deranged lunatic. That probably didn't help me see that he was hunching back and had moved the bucket behind him.

And I certainly didn't see the damn thing when it bashed into my skull.

When I blinked my eyes, I saw his face floating among the clouds and looking like he had just had knocked out a mugger. He peeked cautiously down at me and, after studying his handiwork for a few seconds, yelled, "Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with you?"

I was too busy reeling from the pain and pity to answer him. I felt up to where I guessed the bucket struck and found a bump and a few squirming things covered in grimy-feeling gunk. I pulled them to my eyes and found worms. It just reinforced my desire to stay down and pretend to die. Brian stared at me as I writhed on the floor and, perhaps absorbing some pity, shook his head and offered his hand. I flicked off the worms and accepted it, and he helped me to my feet. Then, he took a step back and prepped the bucket behind him again. I waved a hand to dissuade him and massaged the bump on my head with the other.

He lowered his bucket and asked, "Is there some issue that is bothering you, sir?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's, uh..." I ground my palm into my head and struggled to remember the name. "Tia! I'm looking for her."

"Who?"

"Tia. Tiamat! You know, the Isian lizard? Female? White scales with blue markings? About as tall as thigh or your head if she stands up? Likes cantaloupes and rats? You've seen her, right?"

"Sorry, but I've never heard of such a thing. It definitely doesn't sound like anything we have here."

"Dammit, I'm not talking about any of your goddamned stupid reptiles! I'm talking about my friend!"

"Well, I don't know you and I can't help you find any of your friends."

The bump that I palmed throbbed and threatened to burst out of my hand. I felt the onset of a headache washing over, but it wasn't from the numbness or the pain. Brian tracked his gaze away from me, the guilty look of a liar, that smug asshole. Did he really take me as some dumb fucker? Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but at least I was sure that, for only about the third or fourth time in my life, I wanted to strangle someone. I wanted to see his handsome face contort into gut-wrenching agony as he pled in gasps. I wanted to see his face plumed in a lovely shade of purple. Purple would be a good color for his fat face. I had to clench the anger into my fists in order to drain it away from my voice.

"Look," I said, "I don't care who you are, what you think you're doing, or what your game is. You can be the grand pope of the universe for all I give a damn. But if you're not going to help me, then we're going to have a problem, you understand?"

He took a step back and the bucket rattled. "Are you threatening me?"

"Threat nothing. I didn't come here to fight you or anyone else, okay? I don't care about you. I only care about Tia. I know you have her somewhere here, and I just want to see my lizard!"

"Your lizard?"

"Yes! My lizard! My lizard! I want her!"

I clamped my mouth shut, unsure of what I just blurted. Brian stared at me. After eying me for a minute, he sat down the pail.

"You're Lyle, right?"

"Yeah, Lyle," I mumbled. "Lyle Ivano."

"I remember you now."

He stared to the ground with arms crossed as if in contemplation. I felt like I needed to say something, but I decided to take the cease-fire. We stood across each other like participants in a cold war, which only thawed when shook his head. He took a look at me and sighed.

"Dammit, I know I shouldn't do this, but..."

He motioned me to follow with a flick of his hand and led into a service building on the far side of the exhibits. Inside, he gestured for silence with an index finger to his lips, and we walked through a hallway lined with office rooms. I could immediately make out a faint humming that echoed at the other end. The closer we drew to the sound, the more familiar it became. I wanted run ahead to the source, but I didn't want to antagonize Brian more than I had already, so I just followed. We passed the office doors one-by-one, each only building my anxiousness when I saw they held no signs of life behind them. Like most things in life, the goal was at the last door, slightly ajar with light and hums filling out the gap. Brian opened the door and ushered me in. I could finally breathe.

Inside the room, the Isian was perching atop a table and arranging a pile of mice on a metal tray. Her ear closest to the door twisted toward us, and she paused her hum long enough to call out, "Hey Brian, I'm almost done with the goanna's food. Do you think she'll like this one? It seems a bit wrinkly, do you think?"

She picked out a rodent by the tail and turned to us, only to drop it to ground with a gasp. We stared at each other.

And then, for the second time in the day, I found myself lying on my back. This time, I enjoyed it.

With her rump on my stomach and her body perched on claws flattened onto my chest, she leaned her snout down to my nose and seemed like she was going to lick it. Instead, she rotated her head slightly and just smiled.

"Hi!" she said.

I dug my elbows into the floor and pushed myself up. I held the sides of her thighs so I could move without pushing her off my body. I managed to get to a sitting position, and she slipped onto my lap with her claws still on my chest. She clicked her tongue and tapped a fingertip onto my breast and then to my nose. Then, she posed in mock indignation with her hands on her hips and a faux frown on her face

"Aren't you going to say something?" she said.

"Hi Tia," I replied.

She giggled and wrapped her arms around my neck, and I moved my hands to her back in response. She squeezed while I rubbed her back scales. It felt... pleasant.

"It's so good to see you again, Ly-lee! I didn't think you'd come visit. I was afraid you didn't know where I was. But you're just too smart for that. Oh, oh! I want to ask you something." She released me--to my disappointment--and picked up the dead mouse from the floor. "Does this one look good to you? The goanna will still eat it, but I only want to give the good ones."

"Tia, we need to talk."

"Oh sure, we can talk. I want to talk about the rats too. They're in a different bucket, though."

I nudged her hand away and shook the mouse off her palm. Before her confused face could say anything, I clasped her hand between mine and pulled her closer. "We have to talk seriously. Not about mice or rats, but about you, your brother, and me. We have to talk."

She frowned at me again, but this time without any humor. She peered over my shoulder and, after dressing on a smile, said, "Brian, could you leave us alone for a little bit, pretty please?"

Brian gave an affirmative reply, and Tia pulled herself up from my lap. After I stood and brushed off my pants, I caught a glimpse of Brian before he stepped out and closed the door behind him. Good riddance.

Tia picked up the mouse from the floor and, after sniffing it, plopped it back onto the pile on the tray. She hopped onto one of the table's chairs and rested her arms and head on the backrest.

"Well, I guess we can talk now," she said. "What's up?"

"Why did you leave home, Tia?"

The question seemed to surprise her. She pulled her head back and blinked a few times before replying.

"Well, why not? Why should I stay somewhere where I'm not wanted anymore?"

"What do you mean by that? I didn't tell you to stay away."

"Not you, but that dumb brother of mine. He obviously doesn't want anything to do with me anymore." She snorted in contempt. "You remember the other night, don't you? You were there. You saw it."

"I know, I saw. But whatever Basil said, he didn't honestly mean it. He was just upset, and upset people say things they don't mean."

"No, no, no, you're wrong. I know him, and he meant everything he said. That's just how he is. He can't stand that I might like someone."

"I don't think so, Tia. He's just looking out for you."

She leaped off the chair and shrilled. "It's true! It's true! This isn't the first time he's done it!"

She paced around the room in circles, swishing her tail around in agitated strokes that threatened to nail my knees. I played it safe by pulling against the wall and not interrupting her ramble.

"Every time! Every time he does this! Every time he thinks I like a cute guy, he does this. Every time he thinks a cute guy likes me, he does this. He never leaves me alone! 'Tia, he's not that great' he says. 'Tia, he's a jerk,' he says. 'Tia, you shouldn't go near him,' he says. No! What if I want to go near him? What if like him? What if he likes me? I should be able to do what I want, right? You think so? But no, not Basil. He just wants to keep me alone because he can't stand it. But he's my brother, not my mother! He can't tell me what to do! And he knows this, so he gets angry instead, and starts yelling at me and yelling at other people. Every time! I finally couldn't take it anymore, Ly-lee. I tried, but he's done it too many times. So I left. No more sister, no more brother, no more worries about anyone else. I'm free to finally do what I always wanted!"

Still pent with visible anger but having exhausted the words to liberate it, she released the remainder in a shriek that threatened to rupture my eardrums and left her chest heaving in pants. After she retook her breath, she blinked her eyes--the act of transforming from a raging demon to her normal self--and despair crossed her face when she saw me winced against the wall.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Ly-lee!" she said, scrambling over and taking my hands. "This is all about Basil, not you. I would never try to hurt you. I'm so sorry you had to be in the middle of all this."

I mulled over her hands and said, "Look, I know you two have had your differences. That's normal. But your brother cares deeply about you. Ever since you left, he's been miserable. He hasn't eaten, slept, or done anything except worry about you. Please, come back for him."

She pulled her hand away and snorted.

"If he wants me to come back so bad, then he can come tell me himself."

"Please, Tia."

"Why should I go back? He wished he didn't have a sister, didn't he? Besides, it's good here. There's nice people and cute animals and lots of food and good places to sleep and no stupid brother. I won't go back just because he feels sad. I feel sad too, but I'm not making you go and make nice with him for me."

"He doesn't know you're here. I came by myself."

"Then why don't you just tell him I'm at the zoo and see what he thinks about it, huh?" she snapped. She shook her head and looked away.

The room remained silent for a long time. I thought over my next words. I knew what I wanted to say--what I needed to say--and they formed in my mouth, but my lips bottled them back like a last-second failsafe. I went over to her and placed my hands on her shoulders. I rubbed her scaled skin and touched her bare neck when she turned to face me. A sigh to unbolt the restraints. I said:

"If you don't want to do it for your brother, then do it for me. I don't know what I'll do if you stay here. Please, Tia."

Something tinged in her eyes. I struggled to make sense of it, but I couldn't. It was something in that single raised ridge above her eyes and that twinkle in her gaze I couldn't describe. She gave some kind of Isian expression that human nature hadn't calibrated me to understand. I clutched at the skin of her nape a last time, and then I reeled my hand back and backpedaled to the wall. Tia cocked her head and scrutinized at my actions with reptilian poise.

"I don't know," she said plainly, turning her gaze elsewhere.

"I'm begging you. Come back home."

She went to sit on the chair. She picked up the mouse from before, examined it, and discarded it over her shoulder.

I inched closer to her. "Tia?"

"I'll think about it."

She continued rummaging into the pile of mice.

That was it. I couldn't argue any more. It shouldn't have been difficult. Don't ask her, command her. She isn't your equal. She isn't even human. Grind your heels like an adult and demand obedience from her as a child. This, I know, would have worked. Give three minutes and I would have dragged her by the arm back to Summit and forced sibling reconciliation. End of story. It would've been the responsible thing to do.

But I stood there like a chump and took that non-committal "I'll think about it" as some sort of bittersweet victory when I should have taken it as an insult. Because in the end, I couldn't stand to treat her as reason said I should. As I stood there and watched her sort out mice with her back to me, I did not yet realize why.

"Okay Tia," I said. "Please consider it, okay?"

"Yeah." She stopped and looked up to the ceiling. "Maybe you should go back to my brother while I think. It's getting late."

Out the window, the sun was migrating down between the pillars of the archway to the Land of Lizards. The SE-2's work shift would be ending soon. With nothing left to say, I made my way to leave her in peace. I placed my hand on the doorknob and said to her, "I'll see you later, right?"

She stared at the mice and didn't say anything. It was the best I could hope for.

---

I got back to Summit in time to see Basil, still toting the honeydew melons, plod down the courtyard to the station. We resigned to acknowledge each other with a mutual glance and no words. I considered confessing his sister's whereabouts to him to ease his agony, but Tia's challenge from earlier reined me in. As it turns out, I didn't have any desire to "see what he thinks about it."

The ride back was uneventful.

Back home, Basil found his spot in front of the window and sat down to stare at the world. I got on the couch and watched him. That was our activity for the evening: him hoping to find his sister and me hoping he does. But night came and all he found was moonlight filtering through the window. I called it off and left Basil to wait for someone I knew wouldn't come. I didn't bother trying to persuade him otherwise.

Two capsules of painkillers went down my gullet, one to numb the flaring bump on the forehead and the other to cloud the mind. While I waited for the medication to kick in, I went to give Basil a pat goodnight. I stumbled on a sack next to him. It was Tia's bag. I fished out her collar from my pocket and dropped it in. Then, I shoved bag deeper into the corner since it only served to remind me of my failings. Not caring to shower or change, I got myself to the bedroom, shed my clothes to my underwear, and flopped onto bed.

I thought I would go back tomorrow and try to convince her again, maybe going before work and again after. And do the same the day after that. And the day after that. I was willing to do it for as long as it took. Everything will be all right soon enough. Everything will be all right soon enough.

It wasn't the rattling or the creaking that awoke me--I've slept straight through thunderstorms and homicide crime scenes. It was a premonition, that's the only way I could describe it. I found myself shooting up in my bed with my eyes darting about and trying to make sense of things. I held my breath to sharpen my hearing and sat still. More creaks and rattling. They weren't from the wind or feral cats or lack of structural craftsmanship. They were infused with some tinge. Some beautiful and fulfilling aural quality tickled my ear and shook me awake. I threw off the covers and shot off from bed.

I creaked the door open just enough to let through a survey of the living room past the hallway. Although my eyes still struggled to make sense of the night, they could easily make out the pearl Isian form contrasted against the darkness as he sat in front of the window. The corner of my vision, the place where ghosts and stalkers reside, caught something and attracted my eye's focus. I didn't dare hope, for a second white shape was coming through the window.

Basil scooted back several paces to create a clearing for the second Isian to crawl into. The newcomer slid the window closed with a click and turned to face him. Basil stood on all fours and stared at the other with his jaw parted and surprised, a sentiment I shared. The two stared at each other like statues. I had to restrain myself from running out and shoving them together.

Maybe five or ten minutes later, Basil made the move. With his eyes focused on the other Isian, he brought his forelimbs out and searched around the floor with his hands. He crawled around, patting the ground as he went, and eventually bumped into one of the honeydews he had been keeping for the past two nights. He grabbed the melon and sat up with a rigid spine to present the fruit from outstretched arms.

The other Isian stretched its neck out to take a waft of the melon, its eyes colored with awareness. It patted on a spot at the floor several times and frowned when it found nothing there, and then it twisted around and began nosing through the corner of the room much like Basil did before. Basil kept the honeydew offered in his hands as the other Isian fumbled about.

Finally, it discovered the knapsack I had put away earlier and snatched it from the corner. It rummaged through the sack, pulled something out, and then tossed the bag away. The Isian swayed over to Basil and mimicked him by holding the object out. The two lizards then touched their offerings together. The newcomer smiled. So did Basil.

And then, they dropped their things and clasped their arms around each other.

"I missed you, Sis," Basil said as he buried his head into the shoulder of the other.

Tia purred and stroked his back and neck. "Me too, little brother."

"Promise you won't leave again? Please?"

"I promise."

I closed the doors on the embracing siblings and went back to bed wearing a smile I didn't know I even owned.

Chapter 4.5

I expected Basil to greet me in the bathtub like old times, but when I found him missing in action again, I tossed down the mouthwash and ran out the bathroom. The past few days had conditioned me to expect the worse, and it was a relief to see him at the kitchen table, although strangely, he actually sat on a chair and had a plate and accompanying silverware in front of him. Oh, and a plush lizard rested on his head.

"Morning Ly-lee!" he called out to me with a waving arm. He beckoned me closer. It was good to see him in a chirpy mood again.

"Good morning, lil' guy," I said. "What's that you got there?"

"A plate."

"I mean on your head."

"Oh! Tia gave it to me. He's a basilisk! A common basilisk it says. She got it from the zoo. Isn't he cute?"

He wiggled his head and the stuffed brown reptile greeted me with bobs of its crested head.

"I think we're pretty much alike," Basil said.

"I don't think you can run on water," a female voice called out from the kitchen. I looked in and saw Tia cooking something on the stove. She glanced back at me and smiled. I rubbed my eyes, thinking it as some morning hallucination.

"Well, that's just one thing," said Basil.

"It's the most important thing."

"Then I could do it."

"Really now?"

"Sure! If a basilisk can do it then so can Basilisk. I'm sure I can figure out. Maybe some high-buoyancy waders or something. Nu could help me create it."

"Now that's just cheating. C-H-E-A-T-I-N-G."

"That's why Nu's gonna do it."

Tia came to the table with the still-sizzling pan. I still couldn't quite comprehend the sight. It's like seeing your dogs play poker or something. She smiled to me and said, "Morning Ly-lee. Hungry?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure." I peered into the pan. "You cooked eggs?"

"Yep! Scrambled 'em. They taste delicious, I think. Here, I'll get you some." She sat the pan on the table and nudged her brother. "Would you get another plate and stuff?"

"Why? I got mine right here."

He whimpered when Tia snatched the plate and utensils and moved them in front of me at the opposite end of the table. He sighed and went to the kitchen.

"I hope you like it, Ly-lee," Tia said as she spooned the eggs onto the plate. "I've been practicing a lot at the zoo. I think I'm pretty good now."

"It looks wonderful."

She chirped happily and, after filling my plate up, pressed her claws on my shoulders to encourage me to sit. I thumbed the fork in my hand and smelled the aroma. It smelled full, rich, and genuinely delicious. Tia purred coaxed me to eat, so I speared a lump of egg and took a bite. She looked in anticipation while I chewed.

"It's goood!" I said, my taste buds not allowing me to swallow fully before complimenting her.

"I'm so glad I made eggs for breakfast," she said and licked my cheek.

"Where did you get them, anyway? We ran out days ago."

"The man in room one gave them to me. I figured he might have a couple of eggs since he was so big, so I went down and asked if I could have some."

"Room one? Wait, you got eggs from the landlord?"

"Is that who he is? I dunno. But anyway, he gave me four cases! He's such a nice guy. Maybe I should bring some scrambled eggs from him to eat, do you think?"

"Ah... no, I don't think you should. I think he gets indigestion from eggs."

"Really? Oh well, that's too bad."

She took the pan and tossed the eggs around to pick out larger morsels to snack on. With morning hunger satiated a bit, I thought back to the other day. I was glad she was back, ecstatic even, but her return did nothing to answer the questions that lingered and bit into me. There were some things I wanted to say to her, but I didn't know if it was appropriate. Or that I even wanted to say it. I was lost in my own feelings.

I reached around her and brushed over the velvet of her collar.

"Tia," I started, "I wanted to maybe... I want to ask you something."

"Oh, where is that brother of mine?" she said after swallowing a mouthful. "How long does it take to get a plate? I'll be right back."

Convenient enough. I didn't bring the conversation back up when they returned with a set of plates, utensils, and hungry mouths. I just refilled my plate and shut my mouth up with some more eggs.

At the labs, the twins put themselves forward and make up the lost time in designing Uncle Sam's arsenal of frightening weapons. I certainly enjoyed debugging my crashed simulation for two hours--no, I seriously did. Hell, the rest of the labs seemed chipper and upbeat as well. New joy is infection, and just about the only person not enjoying himself was Mark, who scowled from the third rung when he found that the Isian population in SE-2 had doubled. Same old, same old, and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

The twins bottled their empty stomachs a few minutes past noon (surely a new world record) until their appetites sprung them from arena like a charged coil. I rushed up to follow them. The security checkpoint stalled them enough for me to reach Basil before he could leave. I rubbed his shoulder.

"Hey Basil, mind if I talked to you for a bit?"

"Hmm?" He turned to me and then looked back to see his sister already skipping through the lobby. "Well I guess, yeah. Sure."

I led back into the hallway and away from hungry crowd leaving the labs, to a spot on the far end where we could be alone.

"So what is it you wanted to talk about?" Basil asked.

"I was just wondering about how you're feeling today. You all right?"

"Pretty good, I guess." He considered for a moment with a chin scratch and chirped. "Really good, actually. Everything's all better now! Although I'd feel a lot better after I eat, I think."

"So you're fine then? There's nothing you want to talk to me about?"

"I don't think so."

"What do you think of Tia and Brian? Are you still--" I paused to think of the right word, "upset about them being together?"

The rumbling from his throat jostled my sense of danger and tensed my body. I ground my back into the wall--a reflex at this point. To my confusion, he just laughed. My nerve relieved itself by following along.

"Oh! That! Aha!" he said in between gasps. He calmed himself and sighed. "Oh, Ly-lee. I feel so silly. Can you believe I got angry at her about that? Ah, so stupid."

"You're okay with it now?"

He shook his head and clicked his tongue. "I don't have to be okay with it. She doesn't even like him to begin with. She never did!"

"You're telling me she wasn't attracted to Brian? That all this time she was going to the zoo, it wasn't because of him?"

"Yep! Like I said, she doesn't like him. Well, she probably does like him, but not like him, you know? She likes him how she likes you."

I didn't say anything.

"Actually, that's not quite right. She was really going to the zoo to see him, but for a different reason." He motioned me close to him and whispered in my ear. "She was finding us a new home."

I jolted back up. "What?"

"Isn't it great? She told me she had the idea when we saw the dragon's pen at the zoo. It's big and pretty and even has its own tree. And ever since then, she's been thinking of a way to try to get us a place just like that. So she made friends with Brian. It turns out he's actually in charge of the entire reptile place at the zoo. That's the reason why she kept on writing and talking to him and going to see him and stuff. She was 'making a deal,' as she says. Ha! I was angry with her because she was finding us another place to live! I feel so stupid now."

"Did she succeed?" I asked, hoping for a particular answer.

He chirped and bobbed his head. "Yep! She did! We're supposed to go in three weeks, but she talked them into tomorrow. So we'll head off there in the morning to see our new home. Isn't she the best sister in the world?"

"Yeah, she is."

With my questions answered, I let him go on his way while I stayed in the hall to think by myself. In the end, I felt... dissatisfied.

---

At lunch, Tia didn't appreciate Basil's revelation of their new zoo home because she wanted to tell me herself. Fortunately, Basil's yelp from a pinched shoulder was satisfactory reparation for her. The three of us went back to the labs after lunch, butted a few more hours of work, and headed home. The realization that this would be the last time we would share the definition "home" hadn't yet set on me.

We exhausted the rest of our evening watching back episodes of Iron Maiden and Captain Starslinger served with helpings of hot dogs (a dish Tia hadn't been delighted to yet). Because I couldn't track down that Sage of the Hot Dog himself at his haunt in the park, I bought some generic weenies at the grocers. I made it back in time to see that the princess, once again, wasn't in the space station. Fin, roll the next episode.

A man could only take so much Starslinger though, so I got up from the couch and asked the twins not to stay up too late. Rapt in the adventure, they nodded to me without a peep. I prepared myself for bed.

During the night, a pressure on my stomach roused me up. I stretched my eyes open and leaned my torso up to investigate, but something pressed me back down until I stared at the ceiling. A white face floated to my sight and smiled at me. I reached up and felt its collared neck.

"What are you doing, Tia?"

"I think you and I need to talk, while Basil's cleaning himself," she whispered. She pressed her body close to my chest and arched her neck so her snout pointed to my nose.

I shifted my body up and tried to get into a position more conducive for consciousness. Despite putting her entire body onto me, it didn't feel uncomfortable. I turned on the lamp so I could see her narrow, smiling face.

"I just want to say how sorry I am, Ly-lee," she said. "I'm sorry that we caused you so much trouble. You don't deserve anything like that. I didn't think I would get into such a fight with my brother. Will you forgive me?"

"Don't worry, Tia. It's not your fault." I stroked her neck some more. "Besides, I can't stay mad at you even if it was."

"Really? You mean it?"

"Of course. Things happen. People get into arguments, often with those they love the most. But you know, you could have spared us all from all this if you would have just told the truth. Why did you have to lie to him?"

"I wanted to surprise him. He's the happiest when he's surprised. I like seeing him happy because it makes me happy too."

"Well, he sure wasn't happy when you taunted him. Basil still thought you loved Brian." I hesitated a bit. "And you know, you didn't stop him from believing it."

"You're right, I didn't. Remember what I said back at the zoo? It's all true. I just couldn't stand Basil treating me like he did, even though I didn't actually love Brian. I guess I got too angry with him. So I said whatever I could to hurt him. I said a lot of nasty things, things I didn't really mean."

"You could've at least told me your plans in all this. I could have at least tempered things."

She fidgeted a bit and said, in a soft voice, "Well, I wasn't sure if you'd be happy that I was trying to find somewhere else to live." She bowed her head low and shook it. "And now I hurt my brother and hurt you too. I'm a bad person, aren't I?"

I stroked her cheek and turned her head back up. "No, you're not bad at all. It was just the anger talking. You meant well, and I don't blame you for anything. You're a good person inside, Tia."

She smiled and licked my nose.

"Oh, you are always the best, Ly-lee. I know that you wouldn't have gotten the wrong idea like my brother. You're much smarter than that."

"Well actually, I thought you were in love with Brian too."

God, did I just say that? I did. The self-defensive chuckle I gave afterwards did nothing to soothe the embarrassment. Defeatist laughter only works when the other person does too, but Tia just stared at me. It was a small relief, then, when she finally tapped my chest and snickered.

"Really?" she said. "You really thought I loved Brian?"

"Yeah. Funny, huh?"

"Ah you're just being silly now. Basil imagined it because he doesn't know any better. But you're too clever to believe that." She giggled and sat up. "I mean, why would I fall in love with Brian? He's nice and friendly and pretty handsome for a human, but I would never want him to be my mate. How does that even work? We're completely different!"

"I know. I didn't believe it myself. Ha! It was dumb of me to even consider it," I said, my voice more cackles than words. A lizard and a human--obviously not. Unbelievable that I believed it. Silly fucking me.

"Oh yes. We're so different. I mean, he's a reptile zookeeper and I'm an aeronautics engineer. That's way too different to be mates, I think. You shouldn't listen to my brother, he has weird ideas."

She laughed, but my self-deprecating chortles melted into gurgles. I was at a loss.

"Anyway," she said, "it's all right now, and I think everything's come together just fine. See? I kept my promise."

"Your promise?"

"Don't you remember?" She pulled up my hands from my sides, placed them together, and cupped her claws around them. "I asked you to trust me. I promised that I'd make things better for all of us. And I did! Now my brother and I have a nice, beautiful place to live, and you can have everything by yourself again. Doesn't that make you feel better? Especially after the big fight." She whistled and rocked our hands. "But even then, you still trusted me, didn't you?"

I was looking at her face when I lied to her. Under that innocent, expecting gaze, her hands clutched over mine, I said, "Yes." Right to her face like a fucking slimeball.

She rewarded my loyalty by hugging me.

I pried Tia off my chest after a few squeezes because I began to enjoy it, and that was something I couldn't stand at the time. She flopped next to me on her side and grinned. I thought to do something before she could find an excuse to hug me again, and I remembered her picture from the zoo. I fished it from underneath my bed and handed it to her.

"Before I forget, Tia, I believe this belongs to you," I said.

She examined it for a couple of seconds and then said, "Oh, it's this one! I was wondering where it went."

"I figure you'd want it back now."

"No, not really." She slipped the picture back in my hand. "I'll be living in the real zoo, so I don't need a picture to remind me. You can have it, though. It's a really good picture. The komodo is so pretty. She's such a beautiful dragon."

"She?"

"Yeah. Oh! You didn't know? Sydney's a girl. Basil was actually right, but don't tell him. I'll never hear the end of it." She giggled and came close to whisper. "Maybe I'll introduce them tomorrow. He really does need a nice pretty girl for himself. They'd be pretty cute together, doncha think?"

I studied the komodo in the picture. Crazy as it sounded, I could kind of see it.

---

The sight of the Wyvern-Hamilton tram pulling to the curb didn't allow the twins to finish breakfast in their excitement, and they raced down to meet it. I followed as best my human legs could, just missing the landlord as he hurried back into his room. Brian came out from the tram along with, surprisingly enough, Arlene. She came and talked to me while the Isians pestered the poor zookeeper.

"Well Lyle, I guess this is the day you're going back to a normal life, eh? It must feel good."

"It's good enough."

"Good enough? Don't tell me you're regretting it already. They're not even out of the nest yet." She laughed.

"Well, I just didn't expect them to find a home in a zoo, of all places. You'd think Summit would be zoo enough for them."

"The zoo is probably the best place them right now. We own the place, after all, which lets us to keep a close eye on them and give them the care they need." She patted my shoulder. "See, I told you I'd take care of things and get them out of your hair."

"Hold on, you mean to tell me that you knew about all this?"

"Of course I did. Who did you think gave them the idea to visit the zoo? Isian psychology, Lyle. If they want it enough, they'll find a way to take it. And to an Isian, the zoo is extremely desirable. All it takes is one visit. After that, they'll take care of it themselves. Or at least Tia wil."

I shook my head incredulously. "Ah, geez. All this time, it was all just a rouse. You could have at least told me."

"I was going to, but I just honestly didn't think they'd move so fast. My idea was about a month, but our little hen here just moves too fast," she said, pointing to Tia. "Aika and Natalia did warn me that she would, so I only have myself to blame. I didn't even have time to get Brian in on the plan." She smirked at me. "He told me you made an interesting visit to the zoo the other day."

"'Interesting' is an interesting way to put it," I said.

She shrugged. "Well, don't worry. He was just as confused as you were. I'm just sorry I couldn't get you guys the heads-up sooner. But all's well that ends well. In the end, I really couldn't have asked for a smoother operation."

Yeah, smooth.

"I have to thank Aika though," she continued. "It was her idea, and that message she sent to Tia was what really put the plan in motion."

"Aika, huh? Well now, I guess I know who I owe dinner to."

"Trust me, between the two of us, we owe her a month's worth of dinners. But God knows when we'll get to see her again."

"Then get in touch with me when she gets into town. It'll be a nice get-together."

Aimee nodded in agreement.

We watched the twins interact with Brian for a little bit, until they tried to drag him to the park to get some hot dogs. Arlene whistled for their attention and told them to board the tram, which they did with disappointed faces. Brian, looking like he just finished a marathon, entered after them. Arlene had a foot in the door and waved me in.

"Want to take ride, Lyle? We're stopping by Brian's place before we hit the zoo. His wife is making breakfast for us."

I paused. "Brian has a wife?"

"Yes. He's been married for seven years."

Huh. Imagine that.

"So want to come?" she asked.

"Nah, I'm good. I wouldn't want to bother you guys. Maybe next time."

"All right then. Oh! Almost forgot."

From her pocket, she pulled out a card with Wyvern's draconic emblem branded on its face and handed it to me.

"This is for you," she said. "It'll get you in the zoo from the employee entrances and away from the crowds. Come visit anytime you want."

"Thanks, Arlene. I really appreciate it."

"Don't mention it. It's the least I could do." She entered the tram and waved. "We'll see you later!"

The twins waved their hands at me in tandem. "Bye Ly-lee!" they called out.

After a final wave of goodbyes, the doors closed and the tram pulled out to the street. The twins pressed their faces against the back windows, waving to me as long as the rising sun allowed me to see before it blurred it the tram into a haze. I held out the security card Arlene gave me. "Lyle A. Ivano, Special Guest," it read below the blue wyvern. I thought I would like use it later in the afternoon. And maybe the afternoon after that. Hell, I should look up metro itineraries and make it part of my daily commute. I slipped the card into my wallet, lingered a bit to absorb the morning warmth, and started for the train station. It was only seven o'clock. I smiled. That was enough time to make a quick visit.