Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X, #1)(38)

“Is he cute?” asked Val, with a look Mae knew all too well.

“Don’t get any ideas.” Mae wasn’t going to breathe a word about what had happened with Justin. There’d be no living with Val or Dag then. “I don’t need you showing up at his door.”

Val’s eyes lit up. “Ah, he is cute.”

Dag shook his head. “Ignore her. She hasn’t been laid in, like, a week. It’s a wonder she’s still alive.”

He was joking, although pr?torians did tend to have particularly active sex lives. It was another side effect of the natural physical responses that the implant kicked into overdrive. Justin had been Mae’s first sex in almost six months, an astonishingly long span for pr?torians, but after Porfirio, she hadn’t really felt up to it right away.

Val elbowed Dag for the joke, but at least Mae had the answer to a question she’d wondered about. Val and Dag were constantly on-and-off-again, making it hard to keep track of their current status. Apparently they were off right now. That always made Mae a little sad, but at least the two stayed friendly.

She glanced at the time and finished her drink. As much as she loved her friends, she suddenly longed for some downtime. “I’ve got to go, guys. I’ll give you a drama report the next time I see you—unless you see us on TV first.”

“Where’re you off to?” asked Val. “Hot date? Wouldn’t hurt you to get laid either, you know.” If only Val knew the truth. “You’re cycling back to that castal stiffness of yours.”

“That never goes away,” Dag said. “But you do need to relax, Finn.”

Dag had started calling her that back when they’d first been assigned to their cohort and begun pr?torian training. He’d never been able to remember her last name, but he could remember that she was Nordic, hence the nickname he and eventually Val had both started using. Everyone could tell she was castal, which had made for some rough adjustments in the military. Val and Dag had bonded with her immediately and unquestioningly, maybe because they needed her as the straight man for all their jokes.

“I can’t relax,” said Mae, standing up and swiping her ego to pay for the drink. “I’m not the one on vacation. I mean, monument duty.”

“Ha ha,” said Val. She rolled her eyes but was obviously relieved at the turn of events, and Mae felt a small pang of guilt for not getting in touch with them sooner. They’d had no idea what had happened to her after the funeral and had probably assumed the worst. They were closer to her than her biological family.

“Hey…” Mae hesitated and rested her hands on the back of her chair. “Do you guys know how Kavi’s doing?”

“Still hospitalized,” said Dag, sobering. “Well, that’s what the rumors say. The Indigos aren’t really talking to us.”

That queasy feeling Mae got whenever she thought about Kavi returned. “I guess that’s normal. It hasn’t been that long.”

Pr?torians were hard to hurt, but for most injuries, they healed like ordinary people. There were always whispers of stem cell treatments or other biological breakthroughs to facilitate pr?torian recovery, but the RUNA’s policies against biological and genetic manipulation were still too harsh, even for its prize soldiers. Medical research was one thing, but no one wanted to risk abuse that could lead to another virus-caused Decline.

Val stood up and hugged her. “It’s not your fault.”

“I broke her leg,” Mae pointed out. “If it’s not my fault, whose is it?”

“She was asking for it,” said Dag loyally. He rose too and gave Mae a crushing hug of his own.

“She was just upset about Porfirio.” Saying his name brought about that familiar pain in Mae’s chest. “We all were.”

“Holy shit,” said Val. “Did you hear that, Dag? I think she acknowledged having some human emotions.”

Mae wished she had the courage to ask them the burning question that still lingered in her mind: Why was Kavi so slow? But she knew they’d have no answers. They’d reiterate what Gan had said about her simply being better than Kavi, except they’d use more profanity.

“Let’s head out too,” Val told Dag. She finished her drink in a gulp. “That Amber party should be starting.”

That was one thing you could count on with pr?torians in the city: There was always a party going on somewhere. Val and Dag invited her to join them, but Mae declined. Her ambiguous status had left her glum. She wasn’t active in combat, nor was she really part of the ceremonial pr?torians. It felt weird to go out with them, and she didn’t want to be reminded that she’d missed a chance to be assigned with other Scarlets.

Val and Dag’s party was on the way to the subway station, and the three of them set off into the crowded streets. In the short time since Mae had been out earlier, the partiers and pleasure seekers had nearly doubled. Some were only starting their adventures, while others had just left the theaters and restaurants and were calling it a night. The three eventually parted ways, and Mae had the good fortune of having her train pull up right when she reached the platform.

When she reached the stop a few blocks from her home, she emerged and found a much quieter scene than the theater district. Although it was still very urban, there were no flashing screens in this residential neighborhood. Live oaks had been strategically planted to complement the neat brick town houses lining the street, interspersed with ornate streetlamps that cast dim light and created new shadows. When she was nearly to her door, she sensed a presence near a tree and spun around, gun in hand.