Chapter 14
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.