Chapter Six

Six

The rasp of ripping autoclave tape was achingly familiar, totally at odds with the sight of August standing at a counter wrapping instruments to be disinfected. Breath held, Renee stifled a sneeze from the dusty box she was unpacking, thinking that August looked especially good, his wings politely against his back and the black of his lab vestments going well against his skin, even if his rich red had faded.

Her smile faltered as she glanced at her own skin, now a pasty white, her tan completely gone. Even August had noticed.

"Thanks for helping me with this," she said as August mishandled a strip and it tangled.

"My space, too, yes?" he asked, wings rising behind his head as his mess compounded.

"Absolutely." Her gaze went to the plastic tub that had portaled in this morning. It was from his lab, and he hadn't made one motion to open it. She was nearly sick with curiosity. "But I know you're busy getting the new barracks organized," she said as August gave up, wadded the tape into a ball, and started over. "Did you see the look on those privates' faces when we walked down the hall from quar—ah, the embassy?"

His wing knuckles clicked together over his head. "They moved," he said, his smile perfect.

"Damn straight they moved." Head down, Renee began rummaging in the box. "Seeing you behind glass is one thing. Seeing you in the hall is another." A travatron? Who thought we'd need this? she mused silently as she set the gadget back in the box to return to storage. "Hey, if your lungs are doing okay, do you want to have lunch in the cafeteria?" She picked a forceps from the clutter and set it on August's table to be wrapped and sterilized. "As a VIP, you can sit with me in the officers' mess. I won't let you eat anything with too many ingredients to reduce the risk of a reaction."

"Lungs good," he said, adding a soft click for emphasis. "I bring my own food to…cafeteria."

"Sack lunch. Okay." She hid a fond smile. For all his zeal to introduce new food options to his people, he was just as reluctant to try new things. Back aching, she moved a new box to her table, opening it up to find unsterilized pans and trays. "More to wrap and autoclave," she said as she shifted the box to his side. "You want to put like three to a package, varying sizes?"

"Three. Yes." August didn't look up from the autoclave paper, his long fingers managing the folds with a professional precision as he wrapped, taped, and set them in a tray.

A surprisingly comfortable silence thickened, slowing Renee's fingers and thoughts as she rummaged through the boxes that someone had brought up from storage. There wasn't much they needed, seeing as the lab space already had most of the instruments and machines required to pick apart a genetic code and sequence it. There was an additional space across the hall if animal testing was necessary, something Renee hoped wouldn't evolve. Behind her, a machine hummed and clicked, coming to life as it began to print out the latest DNA sequencing of the Neighbors who had volunteered to stay and work in the newly organized embassy. Dr. Tayler had insisted. It was probably a good idea to have a way to positively identify them if something untoward should happen.

There was a muffled clang as August dropped the wrapped forceps into the autoclave bin, and then the sounds of ripping tape. A soft smile took Renee as she tossed an empty box back to the cart; he was stockpiling pieces of tape, sticking them to hang from the edge of the counter in preparation. Watching him, she was struck with the surrealness of it all: a tall, red, winged demon wrapped in black, standing at a counter, fixing autoclave paper around lab equipment with the same technique she'd used for her entire adult life. She hadn't shown him how. He'd done it before.

"Hey, I know you want to bring your own lunch, but can I get you to try something new?" she asked as August set the tape down and began to count out sheets of autoclave paper.

"Plant protein?" he asked, hesitantly eager.

Renee nodded, leaning in her chair to check the genetic sequencer. A watched output never puts out. "Peanut butter," she said, and August's eyes nictitated.

"Butter comes from cows," he said, and she went to get the last box. "Not plant."

"Peanut butter is from peanuts. It's called butter because of the consistency. It's a legume grown in the ground and encased in a protective shell. You'll love it. And if you handle that okay, I'll give you a peanut butter cup." Dust rose as she dropped the box, and she stifled another sneeze. They totally freaked Neighbors out.

"Okay," he said, wings drooping. "I will try plant butter protein."

The machine behind her dinged, and Renee reached for the printout as it began sliding into the hopper. "Huh," she said as she glanced at the summary, brow furrowing as she flipped through the report. The incoming Neighbors were in line with what she had expected, but August's latest numbers were off.

August carefully set a wrapped vial in the tray. "?‘Huh' means surprise, yes?"

"Mild surprise or confusion," she said softly. "I've got your latest genetic printout. I must have contaminated it. Your data has shifted."

August came out from behind the table, and she handed it to him. Again, the feeling of bizarre took her as she put her shoulder beside his and they looked it over.

"Neighbors lack this technology," he said as he frowned at his results. "I take your understanding on it."

"Take your word on it," she corrected him, and his wings shifted with a soft hush.

"Word," he repeated firmly, and Renee took the report and set it next to one from the new Neighbors.

"It was initially developed to help screen genetic problems in unborn babies, but I use it mostly to decide if two species are separate or simply variants." She stretched to find a ruler so she could compare them line by line. Slowly her shoulders slumped and August's eyes nictitated in concern.

"Yep. Contaminated," she said, then added, "Now we use it for everything from proving someone was at a crime scene, to screening for genetic markers, to tailoring medicines that work specifically for that genotype. That, and to find out if your sister is from another mister." She drew back, annoyed with herself. She'd have to run another or Tayler would bitch at her. "It gives a new meaning to Thanksgiving Day drama," she finished as August stacked the trays on the autoclave cart and shoved it in.

"Do you have a lot of crime Nextdoor?" she asked as she set the printouts on her cluttered, unorganized desk to deal with later.

August closed and locked the door. "Some, but it's not necessary to prove people were there. It's easy to read body words when we lie, so we don't. Not like humans."

She winced. "Yeah, we're good at lying. I think it's that prey/predator thing again. Still, I'm surprised you don't have this technology to screen genetic problems, if nothing else."

August studied the glowing panel on the autoclave, then punched in the correct setting. "Hospital is for…unexpected damage. DNA moves if something not right. Errors go away."

Renee looked up from dragging the last box from the basement closer. "You know how to change your genetic code?" she said flatly, because that was what it sounded like he'd said.

"Change what is expressed, yes." He hit the final button to start the cycle, then turned to her. "But I don't do it." He put a hand to his chest. "No words."

She glanced at the printouts on her desk. Maybe his sample was not contaminated after all. "No words, huh? Make some up."

Again August touched his chest, his eyes lightly nictitated. "Here," he said, fingers tapping. "What opens the portal also changes us to be comfortable on Earth."

"It's a spontaneous change?" she said, not sure she understood him. "Is it because you're moving place to place and your body needs to adapt to a radically new environment?" She blinked, processing it. "That's why your fingers have gotten shorter, your nictitating membrane thicker, and your wings thinner."

"And why I can now speak human words," he said, touching his throat.

Renee reached for her chair, fumbling backward for it until she fell into it. "Crap on a cracker," she whispered. "You evolve in real time. Damn, we can only do that by accident, and most of the time it's nothing positive." She glanced at the door to the busy hall, wondering if Tayler knew this, and that was why she had kept them in such harsh conditions. Maybe she'd been trying to find out how far the ability could stretch.

August was nodding, seeming amused at her shock. "But not everyone Nextdoor has…" He made a whistling click. "It makes changes fast, changes that I can pass on. My children will show changes even if they don't have…" He whistled again. "But only Neighbors with…" He whistled it a third time. "…can start change."

"Wow." She stared at him. "The modifications go to the sex cells." Renee exhaled, thinking. "We need a word for this. Where does…" She made a thin whistle to make August's eyes nictitate in embarrassment. "…come from?"

He hesitated, then took what passed for his phone from a fold of fabric, whistling a short phrase to engage it as he came to sit on the desk beside her.

"Stars?" she said as she looked down. The wavering print was impossible to decipher, but the picture was clear enough. "Radiant energy? Like from the sun?"

"No." August studied the holo, his wings drooping. "Many histories past when all stars, all things, were one. It broke and made…time, stuff, energy. You know this?"

She nodded. "Yes. We call it the big bang."

August bobbed his head. "Good. Easier now to explain. Not everything became stars or energy when…big bang. What was left over is here." He tapped his chest. "Small piece of energy left over."

Renee's expression blanked. "Creation energy?" she whispered, and August blinked as if never having thought to string the two words together in such a way.

"Creation energy," he echoed, adding that peculiar clicking whistle. "Yes."

"That's how you make the labyrinth work. Crap on a cracker, I'll never get to go Nextdoor, will I."

August's wings dropped to behind his head. "You want to?" he asked, and she made a sour face.

"It doesn't seem to matter," she grumped.

"Huh," he said, trying out a new word. "You can. Yes. Now that the portal is fixed open," he said, and her head snapped up. "Not everyone Nextdoor has a creation spark. It stays in…family. Mine is from mother's mother when she died."

Renee's pulse quickened as her thoughts went to the labyrinth. It was unlikely that Jackson would ever give her permission to go, but it was interesting to know that the genetic-shifting spark couldn't eliminate mortality. The Neighbors died like everyone else in the universe.

"Creation spark is rare. Precious," August said, his curled fingers touching his chest. "We have maybe a million. When there was enough creation energy on Earth in one spot"—he gestured—"the portal opened again. Anyone can cross if they know how."

"Wow." She stared at nothing, weighing Jackson's anger at her for disobeying him with her desire to see August's home world. The limiting factor explained why Tayler's group hadn't all left when the portal first opened, instead waiting until enough new Neighbors had crossed over to replace them. If they ever wanted to close the portal, they'd just have to get them all to leave. Creation sparks gone. Portal closes. End of story.

August stood, slipping his holo away before going to the square, clearly otherworldly tub. "Nextdoor, there are so many creation sparks in the portal tower that I can go…" He snapped his fingers. "From here to there with one step. I only need to walk the pattern to go Nextdoor or to Earth."

"You simply snap around." Renee inched closer as August set his box down and tapped at the lock until the curiously shaped letters all turned white. She'd been waiting all day to see what he had brought.

"From top of tower to the bottom, or from home to work. I miss it, but I miss flying more."

"Sorry," Renee said, eager to tell Jackson everything. Damn, the Neighbors could change their bodies to fit the environment and then pass the changes on. It was incredible! "The movement ban will lift eventually." And if it didn't, they'd be snapping out of their own accord when they got tired of being patient. Jackson needed to move faster. "Hey, do you mind telling Jackson about this over lunch?"

"Sure, no problem," he said, the phrase sounding odd as it spilled from him.

"He needs to know." Renee leaned closer as August finally lifted the lid, his eyes narrowing at the sudden rasping sound from inside.

"Hey!" she shouted, jerking back when something bright darted out from between the thin, plastic flaps.

A loud whistle-click burst from August, and his wings flashed open to make a single pulse of air that blew Renee's hair back and sent the glowing spark tumbling across her desk.

"Whoa! What is it?" Renee said as the rolling glow crashed into her pencil cup and stopped. All wing and sparkle, it shook its head as if trying to orient itself. "Is that a pixy?" she said, utterly charmed.

Until August sprang forward, slamming a metal autoclave pan down on it in a shocking peal of noise. "August!" she exclaimed as he pulled the pan away. There was little left other than a bloody smear, two wings plastered to her desk, two more standing up, still quivering. Dark, almost black blood seeped out, and her stomach clenched. "Why did you do that?" she said, horrified.

August's wing knuckles rose as he eyed the back of the pan, then set it in the lab sink. "Yarm piscy," he said, clearly satisfied. "They are tricky everything. We will open boxes in quarantine first from now on."

She stood, staring down at it. "You killed it!"

August used a pencil to hold the body down as he plucked the wings free and, with eyes nictitating in pleasure, ate one.

"And ate its wings!" she exclaimed, disgusted.

August held out the remaining wing. "It's good. Like a potato chip. Try it?"

"No!" She backed away. "You won't eat any protein source from an animal, but you'll eat wings?" Good God, he was eating the other one now, flipping the bloody mess over to pull the smashed two off as well.

"Not protein," August said. "Cookie." Again he hesitated, holding it out. "Sure?"

Thanks to Jackson, a cookie had become anything eaten between meals, and she shuddered as he held it out. "No, I'm sure. I can't believe you killed it. I know you said they were pests, but jeez." She pulled the box away to give August room to clean it up. "You could have taken it Nextdoor and let it go," she added as she cautiously looked inside.

"Is this sympathy for prey?" he said, and she nodded. "Piscys are too fast," he said as he went to the sink and got a sponge. My God, he killed it and is now cleaning it up with a sponge. "If free, they will breed in the walls. When food is gone, they eat birds, snakes. Everything, like they did Nextdoor."

She watched him sponge the piscy up, a flicker of self-disgust rising when the thought to save it in a bag for study crossed her. "So it's kind of like the love child of a cockroach and a cat." She hesitated, then added, "Please tell me it's not intelligent."

August dropped the sponge into a bin marked biohazard . "No," he said, and a knot eased about her chest. "Clever, yes, but not like you me clever. They are not…aah, sentience?"

"Sentient?" she offered, and he nodded, wing knuckles clicking together over his head.

"Yes, sentient. Humans sentient. Neighbors sentient, Piers sentient. Cows and piscys are clever. Snakes…not sure. Piers say sentient, but…jury is out. Too hard to study. If scared or bored, snake snap away."

She hesitated at another one of Jackson's sayings spilling from him, then she raised a hand. "Wait. Two things. First, what's a Pier?"

August carefully washed his hands, his back to her. "Piers are doctors, teachers, historians. Not Neighbors. Different." He turned and pulled two paper towels from the dispenser. "Refugees from a closed-portal world."

Why is this the first we are hearing of this? she wondered. "You have another sentient species on your planet and you're not at war with them?" she said, then began to rummage in the box, hesitating when she found a little nest made out of the newspaper that had been sandwiched between surprisingly recognizable glass plates. "That's novel. And second, I agree with the Piers that snakes are great, sure, but sentient?"

August peered into the box, clicking when he saw the empty nest. "Snakes are not sentient here?"

Renee shook her head. "No, they hide under rocks and scare people. Maybe we're talking about two different things."

"I show you." August reached for his holo again, whistle-clicking a short phrase before holding it out to her.

"That looks like a snake to me," she said as she took it, studying the clearly reptilian smooth body, bright eyes, and sinuous shape. Its head, though, was too large and its eyes were more forward than usual. "Pretty," she added, trying to swipe the screen and failing. August clicked, and the picture dissolved, reforming into a new one.

"Wait. It can fly?" she said as the new photo solidified. The snake was clearly in the air, catching a little red ball, its colorful wings ballooning. "Wow, does everything on your planet have wings?"

"No." August leaned over her shoulder, clicking to make the picture shift to show a much smaller pair of snakes twined together, their heads resting beside each other.

"They are beautiful," she whispered. "But I wouldn't call them snakes. They look like basilisks, sort of."

"You have them here?" August said, and she gave him his phone back so she could take out her own.

"No, but like the pixies, I think some of them slipped through a portal once." She typed into the search engine, then showed him her phone. "See?"

August peered at it, not taking her phone. "It has hands."

Renee pulled her phone back and studied the block print. "Well, you know those crazy monks. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."

"Basilisks," he said, mouthing the word carefully. "They came to Earth by accident, maybe? Must have died out like the piscys."

Renee took the nest out of the box and set it on the bookshelf between her copy of Venomous Reptiles and the book Jackson had given her. "You said they can snap?"

August's eyes nictitated in disgust as he eyed the nest. "Not here. Earth doesn't have enough creation energy, but Nextdoor, if the snake doesn't like you or if scared, they snap. Not come back. They make a good pet by eating piscys. Clever? Sentient? It's hard to tell. They don't have tools and they can't talk." His eyes went distant, as if a new thought had just occurred to him. "Creation sparks like them, though, and Piers can use creation sparks to heal them if injured."

Like August's had healed me…maybe? Renee went back to the boxes and returned to unpacking. "August, if I understand right, your creation spark can keep you healthy by changing your genetic code, but it won't mend bones or cure a cold." He nodded, wing hem curling, and Renee felt her hand in remembered ache. "The day I met you, my hand was full of scorpion toxin."

"I don't know."

It was fast and unusually raspy. She pressed closer, suspicious when his eyes fully nictitated. He only did that in the sun or if he was feeling strong emotion, whether it be anger, frustration, sadness…worry? "It's a small animal with a poison sting," she said, not sure where his confusion lay. "I was stupid and it struck me. Fortunately I had an antivenom. It still hurt, though. When your hand met mine through the glass, it stopped hurting."

"I don't know," he said more firmly, wings high.

"Did you…Did the creation energy in you heal my hand?" she asked, and he turned away. "Because I know I felt something. I didn't say anything because I was afraid Hancock might—" She stopped, changing her mind. "Might overreact. But now that we have more words, was that creation energy?"

"Maybe?" He shifted uncomfortably, his wings a leathery rustle. "Creation sparks act differently in different species." He shrugged, the knuckles in his toes popping to show his stress. "It adapts me to Earth's air, and translates your words in my head, but only after my spark decided to…see you? Before that, your words were…gibberish." He gripped his wing hem in fluster. "Which is odd. If my spark fixed your hand, it sees you," he said, eyes dropping to her hand. "We should not tell anyone until we know for sure."

Renee's stomach hurt, and she couldn't say why. "Definitely," she agreed, and held out her pinky. "It's a promise," she said, using her other hand to bring his up and teach him how to link their smallest fingers in a large commitment. "It's not dangerous, is it? For a creation spark to see me?"

He shook his head. "No. But Noel is—" His expression shifted, and he looked at the door. "Jackson is here."

"Dang, I wish I knew how you did that," she said as she turned, seeing Jackson's silhouette through the milky glass. "I know, I know. No words."

But August touched his chest, whispering, "Creation spark."

"Ha!" she exclaimed in victory, then called for Jackson to come in when he knocked. Her thoughts were spinning. She had felt something when August's creation spark healed her. It hadn't been her imagination.

"Jackson, we have got to have lunch together," she said as he opened the door. "All three of us. August tells me there's a second sentient species Nextdoor. From another world. And that's not half of it. Some of them can change their genetic makeup to suit the environment. Can you believe it? That's why August doesn't need sunglasses anymore all the time."

But her smile faded at Jackson's hunched shoulders and angry frown.

"Renee," Jackson said shortly, giving her the impression that he hadn't even heard her. "August," he added, inclining his head and making the farewell gesture by accident. "Good. I was hoping you were here."

"What's wrong?" she said as August extended the back of his hand and Jackson met it, clearly distracted. "You look…" She hesitated, fear gripping her at his set jaw. "What happened?"

A heavy anger pinched Jackson's eyes. "I'm sorry, August, but I need Renee for about an hour," he said stiffly. "Do you mind if we escort you back to the embassy?"

August inclined his head, his wings rising high. "I know the way."

Renee stood, her overflowing excitement all but dead. "You don't have to leave. This is your lab as much as it's mine."

"I have tasks," August said simply. "Renee, I see you for…dinner meal? I want to try the butter from peanuts."

"Dinner," she agreed, but her worry was thick.

"Okay. Good," Jackson said, but clearly something wasn't good at all. "We'll walk you back. It's on the way."

Jackson stepped into the hall, avoiding her eyes as she and August filed out. She wasn't sure what was going on, but whatever it was, Jackson was pissed. It was all she could do to keep up with him as he strode toward the embassy, arms swinging and his hands in fists.