Double Deceit : 1. Awakenings

In his dream he was together with Isolene again, they were walking down the beach, watching the breakers rolling in with a calming even rhythm and counting sea-shells on the ground, the glistening wet sand sticking on their bare feet only to be swept away when the next wave came in. Far in the distance, yellow through a hazy sky was the minor sun, descending towards the horizon, while the large sun was still high in the sky, burning their necks behind them. He knew he would get a sunburn but he didn't care.

They stopped and kissed, when they had reached half way to the pier with the lighthouse and the ruin. And she tucked back her flaxen hair behind her ears and grinned at him, puckering her lips, expecting more. He had asked for her name then, her full name. And she had given it to him, perhaps reluctantly, because a full name meant business, it meant that playtime was over and that they were supposed to get to know each other for real. Perhaps construct a social life, the cliché kissing-on-the-beach days gone.

Isolene Revasca she had said. Isolene Revasca ne Cleopatra.

Cleopatra!

He was a Cleopatra too.

The clan taboo had slammed shut like a gaol door, the brute force of it vibrating through his body. And he backed off slightly, dating and bedding a clansie was a no-no! Then the world shifted rapidly just as it can only do in dreams. It was night and he and his older brother were standing in front of the floodlighted monument of the founding mothers and mum was telling them the old legend of the one hundred women who had come in a large space ship from a planet far away across the stars in the night sky. She told him that they all had been pregnant at the time. Pregnant with the future population of the world of Zinaa.

"Why no men?" had he asked and she had explained that the men were all but frozen seed back then. Seed for coming children. There were no use sending men as colonialists into space, to have them taking up space and expensive cryo tubes. A cryo tube? Yes, it was in them you slept during the long trip through space. Only to be woken up when you neared the new home which was to be your future world. And when the hundred women were awakened, they had descended on Zinaa, birthed their children and as such started a new batch of lineages, which was to be a future race.

And they had impregnated themselves again and again until all the seeds were gone, and thus began filling up the world with new children. And all those children had taken their founding mother's name as a second surname – or a clan name, as a way to honor her and their connection to the old planet. Their founding mother, mum had told, had been called Cleopatra, thus they belonged to the clan of Cleopatra.

To prevent inbreeding, a risk with all new colonies, the decision had been made to not allow marriages between children with the same clan name, thus hailing from the same clan mother. And that clan taboo had become so deeply rooted in their race that it had lasted up until today, 4000 years after the landing on Zinaa. So a Cleopatra could never marry another Cleopatra. And he and Isolene had no future together. And she knew it too. In spite her cries and despair had haunted him as he had fled through dreams and dreams and dreams... just as so many other times before. And as Isolene turned to leave, she changed, the figure of her body changed, her hair darkened and her face got more solemn as she morphed into Lilith, and he called out Lilith's name, knowing she would not pay heed. Then Lilith was gone. Too.

In the final dream sequence he had stood leaned over the railing and puked, seen the rests of his breakfast disappear down among the churning, grayish waves. And he knew there had been a poison in his dish at that last shore side dinner. A killer poison, because these people, which he and his brother had crossed, never did anything half way. If they wanted you dead then you would be dead when they were done with you.

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Faint, steely sunlight against his lids lastly drew Solan out of sleep. The brightness intruded, propagated and made him blink groggily. A window was open, letting in mild afternoon air and freshwater smell. Sound of breakers killing themselves boldly against a rocky beach. Gull calls mingled with the drone of traffic. Cars were blowing their horns and trams were rattling and jangling their bells. He was tangled in his sheets again, light-headed. The roof of his mouth felt like sun-dried leather. Chapped lips peeled apart as he croaked wordlessly.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. The room needed some air." A dark blur on the left, more or less Amar's height. The floor panels creaked as he moved about. Soft rustle of fabric, a zipper being pulled, clink of metal. Solan pushed himself up on his elbows, prepared for the dizziness. It came on punctually as his surroundings gyrated.
"Was dreaming about her," he muttered. "The times that we - when we first met."
"Her?"
"Her. You know. Even before Lilith."

"Oh, the canonical her." Amar knelt beside the bed, holding out a glass of water which Solan clutched in his shaking left hand and sipped at gratefully delighting in the cold liquid as it wetted his mouth and throat. The world was slowly coming into focus, the spin stopping, the buzz in his ear fading. And he was able to focus upon the small room, the open windows where the wind played with pale yellow curtains, the desk cluttered with props, clothes hanging on pegs by the wall and laying heaped in the sofa. The broadcast set was on, but with the sound muted, some kind of drama playing out with a man and a woman caught in a discussion, sitting by a tavern table. Then his eyes drifted to his brother Amar with his blond hair tied back in a bun at the neck, eyes blue as the midday sun in a tanned, prematurely lined face. Gold hoops in his ears, a scar running across his chin.

"So vivid," Solan said. "Thought I could touch her. Tell her... how sorry I am."
"That's the best you can manage? Dreaming of a woman like that and all you can think to do with your time is apologize?"
"Hardly under my control..."
"They're your dreams. Take the reins."
"Was just a brat for Destiny's sake."
"If she pops up again move it forward ten or fifteen years. I want to see some blushing and stammering next time you wake up," Amar said firmly as he stood and straightened his brown leather pants.

"Going somewhere?"
"Out for a bit. Making my rounds."
"Amar, there's no point. Quit torturing yourself."
"Finished?" As the reply was visible, Amar didn't wait for it as he took the empty glass from him. Putting the glass on the table, Amar turned to the mirror to give the lapels of his coat a perfunctory brushing, before he reached for his hat and moved to the door. " Won't be gone long. Get some more rest, will you, bro'!"
"You don't bloody listen to reason, do you?"
"It has never done me any good so I stopped way back," he put a glowed hand on the handler, a brief smile crossing his lips as he pushed it open and the change in pressure made the curtains flutter as a chill draught blew through the room, refreshing it from the smell of sleep.

The door slid shut with a muted click and Amar was gone, out into the streets of Vinadra.

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"Spectacular!" Lilith Fende ne Madeleine whispered to herself. Still clutching the remote detonator she stared through the night-vision binoculars at the burning edifice below her. Pieces of the structure mushroomed into a spectacular cinder cloud, about a hundred metres of it, masking the stars in the night sky. On the ground, the Syndicate people ran for their lives. Some of them, their clothes aflame, dove into a stream at the bottom of a ravine. She observed the fallout, the wind shift, the added perk she had taken out the van and old hoover craft parked near the building. Mission accomplished. Target annihilated.

"Katana to Aegis, copy?" A voice rasped into her ear.
"Copy, Katana," Lilith responded into the bone mic resting against her chin.
"Nice job, Aegis. That was one amazing show you pulled off there." Ilyn Cestertialis ne Georgina, aka Katana, was heard over the sound of an engine. "Ready for pickup in two?"
"Aye!" She saw the amber-yellow headlights of a large, looming structure coming her way, as she stuffed the detonator into a pocket of her body suit and began running toward a grove of coffee bushes. A six-wheeler, she judged from the size of the vehicle, so it was definitely her ride. "Butterfly, you copy?"
"I'm around, Aegis. Kick-ass job. Wish I had a steak to grill," Ioanna Kortakyra ne Rosita's thick Kalsarna accent came through loud and clear.

Ioanna, a top-notch sniper, had taken up a position on a higher elevation of the mountain. Lilith wouldn't want anyone else covering her back. Ioanna was ex-army, special ops. They had both been hired at the same time and worked side by side now for about three years, getting to know each other in and out, just as they were getting to know this mess of a country which was the Kingdom of Irodiun. Everyone in their little group of mercenaries were betting on how long this nation would last until it definitely fell apart, yet as long as they were paid as mercenaries by the King, they kept on doing their thing. Good job for mercenaries were hard to find these days.

Lilith ran across the rough terrain, her voice breathy as she called the last person in the team.
"Aegis to Azur, copy?"
"Aye, Aegis." Calon Ristrerin ne Bernice, the fourth member of the team, answered her, his Ganzortan inflection sometimes hard to follow. "That meal might get a little burned."
"Not for me," Ioanna said. "I like my meat well done."
"Give me an ahalkifish, a cake of Sarrenite rice and a glass of Ensiadorian wine the size of a car," Lilith returned. She found that she was still feeling the tension that always built in her gut with each assignment being still there, still writhing, even though all team members were present, breathing and accounted for. Now to leave this place with no casualties.

"See you guys." Lilith stuffed the detonator into her backpack, along with twenty-five feet of detonating cord, four fuses and six grenades she had made out of plumbing pipe. Traveling light on this mission, she thought, grinning. Zipping up the backpack, she threw it over her shoulder and drew her gun from the shoulder holster. As she ran along the edge of the coffee plantation toward an open field, her eyes were constantly scanning for uninvited party goers. Like that forsaken Syndicate! She saw none, however that didn't necessarily mean there were none, but she had learned to not worry so much these days. When her day came it came, that was more or less the motto of the mercenaries. The way they had learned to live their lives.  

Just as Ilyn's engine came to a halt, did she reach the roadside. Like well-oiled machine cogs, all three team members emerged into the clearing at the same time. They had worked as a team for three years and it showed. Calon reached the six-wheeler first while Ioanna, point woman, covered them with her automatic shooter. Dressed in night hues like Lilith she wore a turtleneck, leather pants, and thick-soled boots that Velcroed halfway up her calves. Her short, gelled hair made her look like a tribal warrior. Fresh streaks of camo pain were smeared on her high, golden cheekbones. When Lilith and Calon were on board, Ioanna left her spot and Lilith covered her as she ran for the six-wheeler. In one smooth movement, Lilith grabbed Ioanna's hand and helped her up into the cargo hold. At five foot eleven, Lilith was almost a head taller than Ioanna and outweighed her by thirty pounds. She kept her body lean and prided herself on lifting as much as most men her size.

"Goodies on board," Lilith said, the loud throbbing of the engine forcing her to speak over the mic to Ilyn, though she could see the back of his blond head from where she sat.
"Then let's hit the road in earnest." Lilith felt the vibration of the motor deep within her chest as Ilyn slammed the accelerator and the huge engine took off down the winding dirt road, heading for the distant city lights that shown down to the south, turned the heaven orange. She shoved her gun inside the holster, sat down the backpack, then plopped down and pressed her back against the wall of the cargo hold. The adrenaline rush slowly left her, her heart slowing, the familiar pulsing of the huge fossil engine like a soothing glass of wine.

Relax. Breathe. Another mission down. One they could be proud of and one they had be very well paid for by Nolbin XIII's corrupt old government. The king was intent upon cleaning up the Syndicate and other criminal organizations, or at least make it as hard as possible for them to splinter his land, not that he was really successful, the Syndicate and the others had been around too long, had spread like a cancer through the society body and was now next to impossible to root out. Not that Lilith and her comrades really cared, when the offer came, and the generous amount of money with it, they had been more than happy to oblige. That's what they did. International mercenaries for hire.

Ioanna moved past Lilith, clutching her rifle case. Camouflage paint covered Ioanna's bronze skin and short red hair, but her grim and weathered face was still evident. As Ioanna plopped down next to Lilith she saw Calon watching her with pensive dark eyes. Ignoring him Ioanna dropped the rifle case next to her leg with an impulsive thump. She then seemed to realize she had set the case down too forcefully so she ran her hands over its aluminum exterior as if to make sure it was still okay. Pushing a few strands of hair out of her face, Lilith saw Calon's expression fall. She had for a while suspected that he had a crush on Ioanna and now it seemed that her instincts were on target. Calon was well above average in the male department, with his round face, dark intelligent eyes and straight brown hair worn in a ponytail, still not showing a single strand of gray regardless of being nearer 40 than 30. Why didn't he make a move? Then again, it wasn't exactly her problem, Lilith thought and shrugged it off, leaned her head back at the vibrating hull of the six-wheeler.

She considered her years as a mercenary as the most important of her life. They had taught her wilderness survival, martial arts, how to focus her physical and intellectual energies and find what she excelled at - demolitions. Somewhere along the way it had also taught Lilith self-worth, confidence, and to achieve new heights to please herself, not the ghost of her estranged father. Or the memory of her dead sister or the love she had once left behind and who still haunted her in her dreams and idle hours. She didn't know where she would be at this moment if the mercenary life hadn't been a driving force in those critical years. During this time had she become a part of something remarkable, made lifelong ties that could never be broken. Such as Ioanna, Lilith's dearest friend, a sister in every way but blood.

She must've fallen asleep, dulled by the deep droning sound of the engine, because she was beginning to see roses, in purple and the deepest red, roses and thorns that stung her fingers, brought out the rich crimson of blood. She put the finger to her lips, suckled the red liquid, feeling the salty iron kiss her tongue. And there he was again, like so many times before, Solan Windborn. Although it had been about seven years, she hadn't forgotten a thing, in her dream she saw him in all clarity, every plane of his face, every freckle on his nose, those pale gray eyes with streaks of yellow in them. That smile – damn everything, that bloody smile was nothing she would ever forget, if she so lived to be 300 years old! In her dream he was standing right behind the group of roses, grinning daftly at her, the very way she remembered him.

"Lilith," he was saying, "Lilith, you and I we have these..."
"We have what?" she tried.
"Secrets together, you and I," His grin widened.
"What kind of secrets, Solan?"
"Lilith, Lilith, Lilith, you know."
"No, what? I don't know!"
"Lilith, Lilith, Lilith!"

"Lilith, Lilith, wake up your sleepyhead, we're here now," it was Ioanna pushing at her shoulder, and she realized that the vehicle had stopped, the door open to let in chilly night air. "You have that daft smile plastered over your face, dear, what, were you dreaming about boys again?"
"No," she lied as she wormed out of the car and jumped down on the ground. Then she realized it was not a lie. She didn't dream about boys. She dreamed about one particular boy all the time. Solan Windborn.
"Well, we should better go to bed now," Ioanna said. Better leave the report for first thing in the morning.
"Good idea," Lilith murmured as she zipped up her jacket and glanced up in the sky. The night was clear and a billion of stars was spangling the sky, the tiny moon Osorio just a thin, green crescent by the horizon, and both of the other moons down.

Hitching up her backpack she started towards the dorms, wondering if she'd continuing dreaming about Solan this night. She didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing if she did.