priest.
D_Light sat on the garden bench and Lyra straddled him. She was wearing a dress that festooned out and down to the ground, and although he could feel her strong and glorious legs writhing and grasping at him, he could not see them under the silken fabric. She was breathing hard, and D_Light was not sure if this emanated from the incorporeal Lyra who was straddling him in the raw blink or the physical one sitting nearby. In their dream her lips were at the level of his forehead. She kissed him there and on one of his eyelids. The dress was low cut, revealing cleavage and-
Smorgeous pressed into his mind. Master, there is an incoming blink from Lily.
Lyra’s cleavage disappeared as the two of them snapped out of the fantasy. Mentally, D_Light wailed at Smorgeous for the interruption. Lyra, the real one, laughed.
I apologize, master, but your earlier brain pattern suggested that a blink from this sender was highly desirable and therefore-
D_Light interrupted the computer. Just open the blink. Lyra had ended the raw blink anyway, and D_Light felt up to the task of blinking Lily without neglecting those in his physical presence.
The priest paused in his diatribe as he pondered Lyra’s misplaced laughter.
“So, about Lily.” Lyra abruptly began speaking to the priest. “How, in your professional opinion, would we go about helping her out of her predicament?”
D_Light had been wondering the very same thing. Had Lyra picked that up in the raw blink? He did not remember thinking it at the time.
Yes, master, visual data regarding Lily was transmitted during the time in question. Without being asked, the familiar brought up a still image from the raw blink that took place moments ago. There was D_Light with Lyra on top of him as he remembered. Immediately, Smorgeous zoomed in on a portion of the ivory stone bench. There were words etched into the stone:
To-Do List
Save Lily.
Make sweet love to Lyra.
Seize next quest.
How embarrassing raw blinks can be! D_Light suppressed a groan. Certainly, Lyra had spotted this manifestation of his subconscious.
The priest raised his eyebrows at Lyra’s off-topic question, cleared his throat, and asked, “You are referring to the camper? And by predicament, you refer to her demonization?”
Lyra nodded with a lazy smile.
Hi, Dee, did you wish to speak to me? Lily’s thought signature seemed relaxed.
D_Light was surprised to hear his nickname coming from her, so much so that he tripped over his message as he sent it. Ah, I was…I was wondering how you were.
The priest pinched his upper lip and furrowed his brow. “Hmm,” he hummed thoughtfully.
It was kind of you to check up on me. I’m with BoBo. She is showing me some of her wonderful projects. Lily sent him a slightly pixilated picture of a large, woolly teddy bear with giant, dark eyes. It is called a nubber, Lily explained. It is supposed to be a pet. Lily paused and then her blink tone changed. So when will they be ready? When I can I get one?
What? D_Light asked.
Oh, I was asking BoBo when I could get one-get a nubber. At this D_Light realized that Lily had been actually speaking to BoBo and that he had overheard it. It was as though Lily were speaking to him on an audio headset from the old days. D_Light quashed his urge to chastise her for being such a nOOb, for not controlling her output better; however, now was not the time for a lesson on blink etiquette.
They should be ready by Christmas. The tone of voice was high and a bit squeaky; it was BoBo. Lily was just relaying what her ears picked up. This was maddening, especially when he wanted to follow the conversation between Lyra and the priest. Glad everything’s smooth, he blinked Lily. Gotta go, talk to you soon. He ended the blink without waiting for a good-bye.
The priest again sensed that he was actually being listened to and so spoke with a more authoritative tone. “The camper has committed the sin of noncompliance, also known as being off purpose, as she is engaged in activity that she was not zoned for.”
“Zoned?” D_Light asked.
The priest frowned slightly, flicked his eyes over D_Light, and then returned his attention to Lyra. “All products are zoned for certain purposes. Zoning is a legal term, historically and commonly used for real estate. For example, a piece of property could be zoned for commercial use, single home residential, multiple home residential, and so on. It was not legal to build an office building on land zoned for residential-”
Lyra interrupted. “What the fuck is an office building?” Her speech was badly slurred.
“Right, okay, never mind about real estate.” The priest pressed his hands flat down on the table. “The deal is this. A product is legally approved for a specific set of uses, which is known as being zoned. If a product goes off-zone, or in other words, if it is engaged in a purpose it was not designed and tested for, it could be harmful to itself or, worse yet, harmful to others.”
D_Light and Lyra affirmed that they were following him with nods and sounds of understanding.
“Lily was designed for purposes…” The priest paused.
“For purposes related to the hunting reserves. Because she is no longer fulfilling this purpose, she has been demonized. If you want to atone for it, you will need to rezone campers-her product classification-for another purpose.”
“Like as a concubine?” Lyra gave D_Light a rueful smirk.
“I think Dee would like to rezone her as a concubine.”
The priest paused as though to consider this. “Given the phenotype of campers, I doubt that would be a good choice, but yes, you could attempt to expand her zoning to include that purpose.”
A sly smile crept over D_Light’s face. “She’s not ‘off purpose.’ She was designed for evasion, which is exactly what she’s doing.”
The priest let out a raspy chuckle. “Nice try. I’ve skimmed her zoning documents. She is designated to be hunted, hunted in specifically designated areas-the hunting reserve. You are correct that she was designed to resist capture. However, her legal problem stems not from her behavior-rather, it is a matter of geography.”
“Fine,” exclaimed D_Light. “So, say I, or we, buy her from the reserve and rezone her for something like a general servant.”
“Assuming the house that runs the reserve spanker game is willing to sell her to you, rezoning is a long and expensive process. A great deal of testing needs to happen. A high-functioning product like a camper is very complex. It is hard to predict how they might fare with a new purpose.”
The priest sent them a few choice case studies of rezoning Homo sapiens — based products. The point figures were staggering. Reading the expression on D_Light’s face, the priest threw up his hands and declared, “Look, I don’t make the laws, I just provide the best counsel I can. Or at least that used to be the game I played.”
Lyra, who had grown bored with the legal speak and feared that she would waste her nectar wine-induced buzz if she did not change the subject, asked about the garden.
The priest replied, “Blah, blah, blah…approximately five milliliters of the password potion every forty-eight hours or you’ll start smelling like food…blah, blah, blah…wasps are frightful, some of them cause temporary paralysis…blah, blah…orchard has a variety of fruits, all are safe…”
D_Light was only half listening as he inspected the case studies for rezoning. He asked Smorgeous to analyze the data to find an “optimum route for success,” but the computer only gave him expensive and time- consuming options.
The priest excused himself. “I regret to inform you that I have a call of nature of my own,” he said with a half smile directed at D_Light. “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as he left the clearing, D_Light and Lyra turned to face each other. There was silence between them for a long few seconds. D_Light felt himself being drawn into her. He hoped that she would initiate another raw blink.
Master, based on trace compounds I took the initiative to detect, Mother Lyra is 89.4 % likely to be
