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  His dark wings with their jet-black feathers were stretched out lazily to each side of his supine form, their tips extending past the edge of the bed. His chest heaved slowly up and down, and he breathed easily, as if he were utterly relaxed.

  Nothing could have been further from the truth. Below the surface, under the deception of skin and sinew, his heart beat at a thunderous pace, and his mind raced for answers to Alix’s fate that slipped beyond his grasp.

  The handsome trick he’d brought home rested his warm hands on Xander’s thighs, his hot mouth engaged elsewhere. Xander smelled the deep, masculine musk of him, slipping a hand absently through the man’s dark, tousled hair as the rain increased to a thundering downpour against the plas. The drops glistened, each an individual universe of shimmering light before running quickly out of sight.

  A flash of lightning illuminated the room, thunder indicating how close it had been. As the heavy rain pounded against the arco’s walls, Xander rode the wave of pleasure higher and higher. Despite himself, he rose quickly toward climax, drawn up on the tide as the trick worked his cock. Unable to stop himself, he thrust his hips almost angrily upward into the man’s willing throat. Closer, closer….

  He reached the crest, a pleasure so intense it burned through him like phosphorus, a white-hot fire.

  Lightning flared again across the wet, black sky, followed by thunder so close it shook the bed. The storm had reached a fever pitch outside, and he arched his back in the air one more time, his wings rustling beneath him. As if in concert with the storm, Xander came, the release of his orgasm radiating from his hips along his spinal cord and down through his toes and the tips of his wings. He held the man’s head to hold him there while he exhausted himself.

  The rush of elation washed away his cares for a few brief moments. Xander shuddered, shivered, and shuddered again, and it was over.

  For a while, he drifted in an oblivion that was blessed in its emptiness. The rain fell in a steady beat against the window, and he forgot to wallow in his pain. His mind floated free, with no responsibilities, nothing to worry about for those brief moments between sex and real life. This was what he needed. This lack of thought, this pleasurable oblivion where he could just be.

  When he opened his eyes at last, the nameless trick was staring down at him, expectant.

  “You’re still here.”

  “I can do more, if you’d like,” the man said with a grin. Like Alix, he had no wings—a lander man.

  Xander glared at him, annoyed. He was handsome enough, tall, dark-haired, with blue eyes and a light complexion. Strangely, he reminded Xander of Alix. The hair and eyes were wrong, but there was something about him, and that annoyed the hell out of Xander, for reasons he didn’t care to examine too closely. “Get out,” he said with a dismissive wave.

  The man frowned. “I thought—”

  “Oh right, your pay.” Xander took the man’s arm and slitted him a hundred crits from the wrist reader embedded in his own. Then he waved the trick away. “We’re square. Now get the fuck out of my flat.”

  The man gathered his own clothes, but Xander didn’t give him time to put them on. Instead he hustled the trick out of the irising door, palming it closed on his hurt and angry expression.

  I really have become a bastard, he thought, staring at his dim reflection in the shiny black door. It had been a long year.

  He tapped the cirq in his temple with his left hand, and called out to his PA. “Ravi, any messages for me?”

  Ravi’s smooth voice spoke in his head. “Just one, from OberCorp. A reminder to meet the psych who’s coming in from off-world at Immigration tomorrow morning.”

  Xander pulled off his boots, leaving himself naked, and strolled over to the window to look at the storm. “What’s his name again?”

  “Jameson Havercamp, from Beta Tau.”

  “Image?” He closed his eyes and saw the man’s face in his mind’s eye. The man had to be in his midtwenties, close to his own age, with a shock of tight-cropped red hair, brown eyes, and light freckles across the bridge of his nose. He had that kind of schoolboy sexiness that appealed to Xander, looking very much like a younger version of Alix.

  Quince had set him up to play tour guide to earn extra cash—one of OberCorp’s side jobs.

  He was cute enough—slender, not effeminate, exactly, more… refined. Just Xander’s type, like Alix. But Havercamp seemed a little conservative for Xander’s taste, dressed in a tailored suit and one of those rigid white Beta Tau collars. No matter. A few days in this hellhole would loosen him up.

  The raindrops increased, the storm once again picking up steam. It was the strongest tempest Xander remembered seeing in years, and the winds shook the sturdy walls of the arco enough to make him worried. Hopefully the worst of it would have passed before he had to leave to pick up his guest.

  “What am I supposed to do with him?”

  “He’s here to find out why pith production has dropped off. You’re to ferry him out to these coordinates.” Ravi’s voice had just the slightest hint of disapproval, an I already told you this tone. A map appeared, with a point in the Pyramus Mountains flashing blue, along with a contract.

  Xander ignored the attitude. After all, Ravi was just gridcode.

  OberCorp had hired him for off-the-grid jobs like this before. It was a clean one-shot contract. He’d have to thank Quince later.

  Xander had spent a fair amount of time in the wilds outside Oberon City with Alix, in the vast inland forest that was mostly uninhabited and little explored.

  Alix. The man who had pulled Xander out of the gutters of the Slander, and had shown him that he was more than just a trick or rent boy. That he could be more. He’d shown Xander that someone could love him.

  His one-time lover had vanished into the Outland a year earlier while on a hunting expedition with friends. Xander had been concerned when he hadn’t come back after a few days, and later he’d panicked when Alix failed to return altogether. He’d been out of range of Oberon’s grid—too close to the Split, where electronics often failed. Xander had gone out to look for him, spending two weeks on his trail, to no avail.

  Xander sank down on his couch, his wings fluttering behind him anxiously. He waved his hand across the tri-dee, activating the screen in the wide table. “Ravi, playback, please. Alix, Deca 7.”

  “Playing.”

  Soon the projection of Alix’s body appeared above the tri-dee, rendered in almost lifelike precision. Only the slightly see-through quality of the image betrayed it as a holo-vid. Alix’s long red hair was swept behind his ears, and his brown eyes seemed to look directly at him, more perfect than he had ever been in real life.

  How many times had he watched this? He’d lost count.

  “Hi, Xander. We’re out here in the Pyramus Mountains.” He grinned, showing off his beautiful smile. Static shot through the image. Alix had been on the edge of the e-zone, where electronic transmission was barely possible. “Tomorrow we’re heading up into the mountains and….” He turned to look over his shoulder. “What?”

  Xander knew every word by heart—he’d watched this a thousand times. He mouthed the words as Alix spoke them. “Dani says she’s got dinner ready. It’s amazing here, Xan. One of these days I’ll take you out this far. Gotta run… love you.” Alix blew Xander a kiss, and then reached forward to shut off the video.

  Xander got up off the couch and paced back and forth, nervous energy fueling him. He held back a barely pent-up rage. Why did you leave me? he wondered. A year had passed in waiting.

  No more. Xander was done with this obsession.

  This trip was just the thing he needed to take his mind off Alix, to put the whole sad thing behind him. I can’t wait for you forever.

  He grabbed a carry sack and filled it with the things he’d need on the road. He’d be meeting the psych the next day, and would bring Havercamp to his storage unit to pick up a few more things. Then he would haul the man out toward the Split. It would be good
to get away from everything here that reminded him of Alix.

  He finished packing, too tired to even think anymore. He dropped down onto his bed, exhausted. He closed his eyes, but sleep refused to come, and he tossed and turned for another hour.

  At last he sat up, frustrated, and ordered a sleeper from Ravi. It dropped out of the replicator slot, and he slapped the patch onto his wrist and lay back down, waiting for the drug to take effect. He needed to be fresh tomorrow.

  It coursed into his system through his skin, and he fell almost immediately into a dark and dreamless sleep as the rain continued to fall unabated outside.

  JAMESON HAVERCAMP stood on the observation deck of Titan Station, the floor transparent beneath his feet. He stared down at the strange world that spun slowly below him, trying to contain his unfounded fear. His mind told him he was perfectly safe, that this “window” beneath his feet was thick enough to hold the void outside at bay.

  His body told him to run.

  “It’s quite a sight, isn’t it?” someone said behind him.

  Jameson laughed. He turned to the speaker, a man a little older than he was who was holding a boy’s hand. “Yes, it is.”

  “We’re here for a conference. Brought this little bugger along because, really, how often do you get to see one of the wonders of the galaxy?”

  Jameson had to agree. Split was its slang name—it was more properly called Oberon, and it rotated below them, almost a perfect half sphere. The “round” side was a picture-perfect normal, Earth-analogous world, green and blue. It turned under the sunshine as the station swung around from the north to the south pole.

  The other side, barely visible from this vantage point, was a nightmarish tangle of broken, melted rock, evidence of whatever had torn this world in two. His reading had informed him that the backside of the planet was called “The Split.”

  Only no one knew what had actually happened here, where the other half had gone, or what force kept the remainder of this world from crumbling into a rocky ball. Some theories posited that the other half was still there, perhaps converted to dark matter, but no one had been able to prove it.

  “My name’s Jameson.” He held out his hand. “I’m here on a mission from Beta Tau.” He pulled at his stiff collar. He longed to be free of it, but formality insisted that he be properly dressed when he met the company representative.

  The man shook hands with him, smiling. “I’m Zefron, and this is Davis. We’re from Pleiades II. Have you ever been?”

  “No. It’s my first time.”

  There was a loud chime. “Passengers on the Oberon City shuttle, please come to hanger three. Departure in fifteen minutes.” The station used Earth-Standard measurements, something he was going to have to get used to. Beta Tau was bigger than Earth, with a slower rotation, so he was used to days about two hours longer than Earth’s, and the Oberon “day” was two hours shorter than that.

  “Good luck at the conference!”

  Zefron winked at him. “Thank you. Good luck on your mission.”

  Jameson shook his head. He was always getting hit on by other guys. It didn’t offend him, but everyone seemed to think he liked men. He didn’t. He couldn’t. His parents would have his head if he ever so much as showed the slightest inclination toward that sort of thing. They were Christianists, and Beta Tau was a Christianist world, where men married women. Period. Where men were supreme, and women kept a nice kitchen—or mansion, in his mother’s case.

  Still, it was nice to be noticed.

  Jameson picked up his suitcase and followed the other passengers toward the shuttle bay. This was his first research mission for the Psych Guild. The Guild had its fingers in a number of planets and industries, from the psychological treatment of billions to the pharmaceuticals that treatment required.

  He still wondered why he had been chosen for this mission. He had just three years of experience, most of it treating miners on Tander’s World with pith addictions. The pharmaceutical originated here on Oberon and had a variety of legitimate uses, including inducing a useful dreamlike trance at low doses that had been a great aid to therapy. It could also be used as a kind of aphrodisiac in higher amounts.

  The pharmaceutical supply had dried up over the last six months, something of great concern to both the therapeutic community and to addicts across the Common Worlds.

  They should have sent someone with more experience. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing here.

  And yet, here he was.

  He hoped the company representative would be able to provide some guidance.

  He sighed and settled into a seat, letting it strap him in for the ride down to planet-side.

  Chapter Two: Psych

  XANDER’S ARM was outstretched toward a winged stranger as he plummeted toward the ground. His own left wing hung limp and burned as red bolts of molten lightning rained on the landscape below like hammers of God.

  The arcos were crashing down to ruin, one after another, adding a terrible grinding crash to the chaos of the red afternoon. They ruptured as they collapsed, and hundreds of bodies fell out, people screaming as they plummeted toward the ground.

  Xander awoke in a pool of sweat, the sunlight touching his lithe form through the thick plas, warming his face. Everything was quiet and calm, and the arco was still standing.

  He glared at the sunlight; it seemed strange. Dimmer? He remembered the trick blathering on the night before. Something about sunspots. Xander hadn’t really been listening.

  He stood and stumbled over to the wash stall, slipping himself inside the small cubicle with some effort. He tapped his cirq. “Bathe.” The warm ionic spray blew over him, covering his shoulders, his chest, his wings. Xander stepped out a moment later and slipped into his riding armor, a black plas-faced jumpsuit that covered his arms, chest, and legs, protecting him from Oberon’s harsh daytime glare and the knacks and wereverens who loved to bite the unprotected for a quick blood snack. He slipped fingerless black leather gloves onto each hand.

  “Breakfast,” he mumbled, and a moment later a tray slipped out from behind a small hatch in his eating nook. The smell of cafflite and eggs filled the room. He downed the meal hungrily, his nerves tingling from the stim he’d taken the night before, a mix of pith and uppers.

  Xander wasn’t even sure it was pith. That shit was harder to come by than an Oberon City virgin these days.

  Shoving the dishes into the recycler, he grabbed the carry sack he’d packed the night before and pressed his palm up against the clear plas of the window, feeling the cold from outside. The storm had largely abated overnight, reduced to tattered clouds with some flooding down in the streets below.

  The pattern recognition system matched his palm print, verifying his identity. Twin doors slid aside in the floor, and his hoverbike, a sleek, black machine all darkness and sexy lines, slid up into view. The doors sealed shut below it.

  Xander slipped into his riding chaps, pulling his custom-made jacket around his wings and fastening it to keep out the cold, leaving his wings free. There were few enough skythane, or wing men, here in the city, and it was hard to find clothing made for someone like him.

  In public, many people threw him dirty looks because of his wings. Wing men were a breed apart from “normal” humans. The skythane—first-wave colonists like him—were often called barbarians by the landers, the second-wave human colonists whose bodies more closely matched the galactic norm. Jealous bastards.

  The company had tried to eradicate his people, once upon a time, and even now it wasn’t so uncommon for people to spit on him and call him a native bastard. Xander ignored them; he had grown a thick skin in his adolescence, after his adoptive parents had died and he’d been forced to live out on the streets. Before Alix.

  He pulled on his black riding gloves. “Ravi, open the doors.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  The plas window directly in front of the cycle split apart, a straight hairline crack that spread from the base of the
window up to six feet off the floor. Clear doors formed in the plas, and then they opened outward, letting in the chill. The storm had passed.

  Xander climbed onto the bike and palmed the power key. The machine roared to life underneath him. He powered up the bike’s amalite drive and released the brake, soaring out of the arco into the open air. The wind whistled past him, and he spread his wings to slow his velocity, thrilling in the drag as the cool air flowed past. The breeze buffeted him as the bike descended toward the personal air transportation level a hundred meters above the ground, and he felt free for just a moment.

  The whole of Oberon City was spread out before him. The streets far below were still glistening from the rain. Xander breathed in deeply, smelling the scent of the Outland forests, pulling the moisture-laden air deep into his lungs. He loved being outside after the rain. For a few hours, the air was fresh and clean, without the usual nasty, metallic tang of the city.

  For all that he’d grown up here, sometimes he still felt like he didn’t belong. He loved instead the wide open spaces of the Outland, beyond the city confines.

  The ground below sped toward him, a landscape dotted with factories and feeder tubes and causeways thick with traffic. Heavy supply tractors lumbered up to the base of the tower, laden with foodstuffs from the farms at the edge of the city or amalite ores from the Split.

  Behind him was the row of two-mile-high arcos, anchored to each other by massive, silvery blue metallic trusses a hundred feet across. The arcos ran in an ordered row along the waterfront.

  Beyond them were factories and warehouses where those prized ores of Oberon were refined and prepared for out-system shipment, and past that, the criminal warrens of the Slander began, a never-ending maze of haphazardly constructed warehouses, shantytowns, and Syndicate strongholds like a creeping blight, home to hustlers of all kinds, Dark Market dealers, and anyone who didn’t want to be found by the law, such as it was. His home in a previous life.