ovulating. In addition, her blood alcohol level is elevated; however, I was unable to determine a reliable measure of this level. Biochemically, she should be amenable to courtship advances. Smorgeous brought up a visual of the Tappin_It_Baby™ Cloud site. Featured on the site were a variety of up-to-the-minute novel pickup lines.
D_Light could not believe Smorgeous had misread the situation like this. Pickup lines? I’m way past that. On the other hand, the line “I don’t gotta grok what’s gotta be good stock” was sort of funny.
I always have your back, master. This last comment had been programmed into Smorgeous years ago when D_Light had fewer friends. He spent hours trying to teach his computer to be more of a companion. Back then, one of the roles D_Light wanted Smorgeous to play was that of “wing man.”
Never say that again, D_Light said to his familiar. Smorgeous pinged confirmation.
D_Light spoke first. “I’m going to kiss you tonight.”
“Oh my!” Lyra’s lips opened in an exaggerated O as though shocked. “Are you sure? Do you wish to assert sexual dominance over your team leader?”
Surprised by her unusual follow-up question, he stumbled a bit over his response but did so with a confident smile. “Er, I do,” he replied.
D_Light took her hands and stood up, directing her to follow.
Lyra giggled. “What about what’s his name, the priest? He’s coming back you know.”
D_Light shrugged and started walking toward a nearby path between the hedges. Lyra resisted halfheartedly, but D_Light pulled her along. Outside of the clearing, the garden was dark. Lyra fired up her glow stick, causing the miscellaneously shaped plants and trees to cast long, perplexing shadows. D_Light was not sure where he was going, but he wanted to get out of earshot of the dining area. The last thing he wanted was the priest joining them. For D_Light, this was a momentous moment. I’m about to perv my mother! he thought. To establish an intimate bond with a noblewoman was a most excellent tactical move, to say the least.
He looked back at her. Lyra was returning his gaze steadily. Her large green eyes were blurred with alcohol, but her vivacity was undiminished. An impression of Lily with a smile and a cocked head flickered across his mind. How he would like to be holding her hand now.
D_Light realized his mood was fading. Smorgeous, seizing on the importance of this encounter, gave his master a boost/aphrodisiac cocktail. D_Light felt the slow tingle of lost inhibition and heightened attraction spill into him, at which point he turned back and embraced her. They were not in a private grotto like D_Light had planned. They were not even hidden under any vegetation. Rather, they stood groping and moaning right there on the path.
Lyra broke away, but she kept her face only centimeters away from his and whispered, “If PeePee were alive, she would tell me this is not proper decorum.”
“Thank Soul she’s dead! Listen to a machine and you’ll end up no better than one.”
“I have a reputation-”
Lyra found herself unable to finish her sentence as D_Light’s lips hungrily latched onto hers, their curious tongues meeting with the gentlest of caresses. The kiss was moist and delicious and possessed an addictive quality that rendered them slaves to the hormonal rush that followed. Slow, passionate kisses quickly gave way to frenzied, lustful ones, and the two fell to the ground as they groped, grabbed, bit, and pulled each other closer. After much of this intensely disorganized fumbling, they made love, or to better describe the act, had sex. The kind of sex that is found in the wildest of places, places like this, where copulation of all forms reigns supreme and the very fabric of the world is dependent on it. And at the height of it all, after D_Light had finally gone over the edge, there was a long seven seconds when everything in his world made sense as he stared into his beautiful mother’s bottomless eyes.
And then he thought of Lily.
CHAPTER 29
The angel Jacob was standing deep inside the synthetic shell of his mother ship. Although a few of his kind resided on ships that floated in space, Jacob’s ship carved through ocean waves just outside the sight of land. Waterborne ships were far more resource-efficient than the space-going variety, and so when conducting missions on earth, they were often an optimal choice.
As Jacob had his systems checked and re-checked by a team of bots, human technicians, and human-based products, he briefly reviewed the case of the demons who had escaped into the inner sanctum of House Monsa. The human agents who had been coordinating the pursuit in Jacob’s absence had done an adequate job of tracking the demons but had failed due to what Jacob regarded as “unlikely events.” Therefore, the angel sent them a stipend covering half of their expenses thus far. In addition, the angel agreed with Katria and Rhemus that sending lesser agents than Jacob himself into the inner sanctum could likely result in further resource losses.
Jacob set a flag of “moderate importance” on the case and went to sleep to optimize his repairs. He would get to them soon enough.
D_Light woke up alone. At some point in his sleep he had rolled off the stone pathway and into the multilayered folds of a soft, leafy plant, the very species of plant the doctor had told him the night before made for good toilet paper.
A ferret on its haunches stood nearby, staring at him unblinkingly. It had a long white stripe down its abdomen. It was Lyra’s familiar, PeePee; she cocked her head as D_Light blinked into the artificial sunlight that filtered down through the tree leaves above. Smorgeous sat nearby communing with the ferret.
Mother Lyra pinged him with a blink request, which D_Light accepted. Good morning, stud. Her voice was amused.
D_Light rubbed his eyes and asked, Hey, is that Pretty Princess, your familiar? I thought it was-
Lyra interrupted. Yeah, PeePee was in bad shape, but the doctor had his techs fix her. I suspect he feels guilty about the whole culler incident and wanted to try to make amends.
Lyra paused momentarily and then said, Anyway, let’s get something straight right out of the gate. What happened last night is between you and me, right?
Right, of course! D_Light sent the thought back without hesitation.
Naturally, I’m not ashamed, but I would hate to see anything on the Cloud.
Lyra meant to continue, but D_Light sent his thoughts back nearly on top of hers, exclaiming, No! No, you can forget about it. I mean, don’t forget about it, but don’t worry about me doing anything like that. That, I mean, like you said, that was just between you and me. D_Light wondered if anything that he had just transmitted made sense.
The blink was silent for a moment.
I mean it, D_Light added, unable to handle the awkward silence. By Soul, I’ll even submit a contract on it.
D_Light thought for a moment in order to come up with some suitable words and then pinged his familiar. Smorgeous, I hereby swear to not knowingly and willingly disclose to anyone directly or indirectly the, er, events of last night between Mother Lyra and myself. Smorgeous pinged confirmation, which was also received by PeePee.
Master, what is the point penalty for breaching this contract? Smorgeous inquired.
Let’s make it two hundred-no, make it five hundred thousand points.
Artificial intelligence was quite adept at detail-oriented tasks like drafting simple contracts, so after some clarifying questions Smorgeous read back the finalized and verbose refinements to ensure it was what the two had agreed upon. The contract was then digitally signed, encrypted, and submitted to the Game. Essentially, the contract created another rule for D_Light to follow in the Game. If he broke the rule, half a million of his points would be taken from him and deposited into Lyra’s profile. It would be a huge loss.
As the last confirmation of the contract pinged, Lyra spoke, highlighting her thought with a warm signature. Thank you, D_Light. That was a generous sum, and your gesture puts my mind at ease. You are more than a great player, you are an honorable man.
I thank you, Mother, for your kind words, he responded.
