assistant because I thought of it and took the initiative.”
Lyra opened a blink to D_Light, which was auto-accepted. We do not have a quest at the moment, so I don’t see any reason to sweat Lily being occupied by the doctor. Meanwhile, she’ll be safe as his guest.
D_Light pinged approval.
Dr. Monsa nodded. “Yes, why don’t you girls show her around or, uh, have her assist you. You can take turns using her as an assistant, starting with BoBo, who, as she astutely pointed out, thought up the scheme.”
The priest raised an index finger. “Really, sir, I must advise against this. No offense to you,” he said, gesturing toward D_Light, Djoser, and Lyra, “but harboring these fugitives could get you in hot water with the Authority.”
“As I said, the camper, Lily, is a fugitive because she is off purpose. Well, almost all the products in my laboratories are off purpose. How else could I run any of my labs? My creations are evolving all the time, and in this process so is their purpose evolving. Only when a product has been fully developed and ready for market can it be zoned.”
The doctor paused, wiped his chin, and pointed to D_Light and his team. “As for them, well, they’re just playing a MetaGame, a game that I am apparently part of. The Divine Authority need only review my archive on the matter to see the truth of this.”
D_Light raised his hand. “What happens to Lily after the game?”
“She can come and stay with me as long as she is able. That is, until the Authority comes for her, at which point I will have to turn her over.”
Following D_Light’s example, Lyra held up her hand. “Sir, until we get our next quest, what shall the rest of us do?”
“Relax,” said the doctor as he took another sip of nectar wine. “As I said already, you are all my guests.”
The dinner conversation then switched over to the MetaGame. Dr. Monsa was eager to hear the details. He asked many questions regarding the spanker games, as this was a subject he knew very little about. He found the encounter with the fish in the lake to be hilarious. “My house designed those feeder fish, you know. You must send me an archive so I can include it with our promotional material.”
Djoser did most of the talking since he still had ready access to all the memories via his familiar, while Lyra, lacking the memory retrieval and processing power of her familiar, awkwardly attempted to add bits and pieces from time to time. Moocher and Smorgeous, at the behest of their masters, collaborated to stitch together an archive of the team’s adventures thus far, which was delivered to the grateful doctor to review at his leisure.
Throughout dinner the analyst constantly dropped hints to the doctor, including long, deep sighs, throat clearings, and offhand remarks to other guests such as, “I certainly am full.”
Eventually, Dr. Monsa took mercy upon the creature and gave him permission to be excused. The product stumbled over his own tubes in his haste to get back to work.
Soon after, the others left as well. Each of the girls excused themselves with a curtsy and a smile. Djoser was eager to see how Amanda fared, so he followed the clone daughter wearing the blue bow to the infirmary within the garden. The doctor, claiming pressing business, also took his leave. The only ones left at the table were Lyra, D_Light, and the priest. Lyra, having taken to heart the doctor’s advice to relax, had drunk a few more glasses of wine than she normally did and seemed too drowsy to move. She slouched back in her seat, nudging D_Light from time to time, saying things like, “What a good choice you turned out to be.” Otherwise, the priest, as is customary for their profession, did most of the talking. D_Light was not really listening because it mainly concerned the priest’s specialty in divine law.
“Blah, blah…consult on compatibility of divine law and house rules…blah, blah…mostly intermediate-sized houses…blah, blah…nearly always scored in the top twenty percent of my games…blah, blah.” The priest’s voice sounded like someone breathing in and out slowly through a harmonica.
Absently, D_Light ran his index finger along the collar of his skinsuit. The moisture of Lily’s tears had dissipated. He had been trying to open a blink with her, but she was not responding. The priest, who had been ignoring D_Light in preference to Lyra, now looked pointedly at D_Light, which brought him back to the conversation.
“Yes, despite my lifetime of devotion to the OverSoul, I did not make the list. I am now one hundred and seven,” declared the priest.
“You look fine for being off contract for two years,” Lyra half slurred. Slits for eyes, she looked as though she might nod off.
“Oh, I cannot take credit for my health,” the priest insisted. “It is the inner sanctum, the food and water here, the air even. The doctor has infused the very fabric of his laboratory with countermeasures against aging, cancer, and the like.”
D_Light thought this last bit was interesting and said so. Seeing that his audience might actually be listening after all, the priest straightened his back, cleared his throat, and continued in his sonorous tone. “When I found out that I was not chosen by the Potent One, I felt I only had two choices-either live out the remaining few years of my life in decay, or die swiftly in the gladiator pits of the Real Games. At first I was leaning toward the games.”
Lyra laughed lazily. “You would not have lasted a minute in those games. The sorts of players who end up in the pits spend their entire gamespan training for that.”
An infinitesimal grimace passed over the priest’s face, but he then said, “As a priest, particularly in the area of divine law that I practiced, I made many enemies over my lifetime. A great many would have wagered much to watch me fight to the death. As you probably know, participants in the pits receive a share of the bet. You are right, I would not have survived long, but perhaps long enough. I hoped to pass on a great deal of points to my two children.”
“Children?” Lyra exclaimed with a smile. “You have bio-children? How sweet. Yes, I should like to have a little girl someday. What about you, Dee?” She regarded him with heavy eyelids.
At that moment, D_Light received a raw blink request from Lyra. A raw blink was a direct link between two or more minds. It differed from a typical blink, which only consisted of filtered and polished communication; raw blinks let everything in. Raw blinks were rare between players, except between those who truly trusted one another. It was often reserved for lovers and certainly was not done between players of different levels like Lyra and D_Light.
D_Light gave permission, and his mind was suddenly inundated. There were images of skin entwined, of hair and sinewy limbs, of hearts thundering. He was there with Lyra in bed, in the grass, even on the table in front of them.
Her eyes were boring into him, she was biting her lip, and a thin trickle of blood was running down. D_Light was not certain whether he was actually seeing this or if it was just coming from her mind. None of this was appropriate, but D_Light stomped down on his reservations, afraid that it would be sent to her. She was giving him a gift, baring her soul. He would not reciprocate with formalities. Instead, he joined her fantasy, starting by giving her slow, methodical kisses and tenderly running his fingers through her hair. But she was twisting over him, pawing him.
The priest continued, unaware of the silent exchange between his audience. “Blah, blah…Dr. Monsa is legendary…blah, blah…fruits from trees…blah, blah…”
You and I are alike; we are winners apart, but we could be divine together. Give me your love and we will share our strength. Lyra’s words cascaded down into his awareness. The two of them were holding hands while walking through the garden, a garden like the one they were in, except that the plants and rocks were blurry shadows with soft, rippling colors.
The curious thing about a raw blink is that participants feed off each other’s thoughts. One might think of an apple, and the other might change that apple to a peach because that is what they prefer. Then the first participant might take a bite of the peach, but find it crisp instead of soft, and the cycle would continue on in this way. A shared stream of consciousness. In this case, it was a shared daydream. D_Light had used raw blinks many times to brainstorm with other teammates, but this was always in the service of a grinder game. This exchange he engaged in now was less disciplined than that. It was like an erotic psychic storm.
The mutual daydream reset and now they were in the garden holding hands. D_Light was not sure whose fantasy this was. There was a stone bench with thin, flowered vines enwrapping it.
“Blah, blah…help him, he helps me…blah, blah…symbiotic relationships are the purest…blah, blah,” went the
