Chapter 8 Singularity
SINGULARITY
The burner phone in the hidden compartment of Lucien’s office desk beeped.
"Fuck," the doctor spat, yanking open the drawer as he grabbed the burner phone, unlocking it and pressing it to his ear. "Yes," he said, voice clipped.
"Why didn’t you stop her?" Sabine’s cold voice carried through the phone’s speaker.
Lucien had known this was coming. He had known, as soon as Vesperin came to him, wanting to leave for Sibeth, that he would do everything in his power to ensure she was able to go. The ultimate freedom. On another planet, Sabine and Talor couldn’t touch her. But neither could Lucien.
Carefully, he spoke:
"What did you expect me to do?"
"Not clear her for travel," she replied coolly.
His free hand drummed restlessly on his office desk. The blinds were drawn, leaving his space in dim light. The beginnings of a migraine pulsed behind his right eye. From lack of sleep, from stress.
It had been only hours since he had left the Fleet warehouse after seeing Vesperin off.
Hours in the cold, dead silence of his apartment.
The familiar coldness had wrapped around him like choking smoke as he entered.
He knew that he couldn’t stay there anymore.
Not without her, after she made the space where he rested his head feel like home for the first time.
So, he had packed a bag and left for Solar City General.
At least in his office, the memory of her didn’t linger in the shadows.
He felt her in his examination room, could barely stomach walking inside, but here, it was him. Alone. Always, alone.
"You did not instruct me on that. I assumed honesty was best suited for the situation," Lucien said.
He was walking a precarious line, and they both knew it.
One word from her or Talor, and Lucien would be drugged in the middle of the night, taken to an undisclosed location in Lunar City, and dumped into the Azure River, where the sparkling blues of the bioluminescence would obscure the red of his blood.
"You push your luck, Dr. Quenlan," Sabine warned. "Do not forget who is in charge. Shall I remind you?"
Lucien stilled, his finger hovering over his desk. Vesperin was safe, he reminded himself. For now.
How long could he keep her safe? He was working alone, now, without Kiton’s help. And Lucien himself was at the mercy of the Blackfalls.
He swallowed. "No," he said, "I do not. Forgive me. Next time, I will consult you first before making a decision." The words hurt, tugged from within him with acid dripping from the ends.
"Be sure you do." Sabine’s voice was a purr—a rare show of emotion.
She was like a machine. Utterly unfeeling.
"I will be sending over new documents on a fresh batch of subjects we received from a contact in Lunar City.
" Lucien knew what that meant. Trafficking, most likely.
Picking up prostitutes off the street and luring them in with promises of money, only to shove a drug-laced cloth over their lips to stifle their screams as they were forced into some nondescript van.
Or scouring the areas populated by the homeless.
"Look over the information and compare the data to Vesperin’s. While she is away, we will further our efforts in Nova implementation on this new batch. The experimental group is small, but should prove beneficial. Not many Aetherborns to be found as of late," Sabine continued.
Lucien’s hand tightened on the cheap plastic of the burner phone.
"I’ve seen the dosage of Somnocept in Vesperin’s bloodwork.
Her blood pressure has been steadily dipping, and her immunological markers are collapsing.
The decrease in white blood cells could prove fatal.
The experiments…" he hedged, "how often are they conducted? "
Her breathing filtered through the speaker. "That is none of your concern, Dr. Quenlan. Is there a reason for your specific interest in her? Attachments are… temporary. They can be easily cut away."
Her words were pointed, and Lucien felt the blood drain from his face.
He had questioned it. But hearing it—confirmation in her veiled words—made his stomach churn.
Sabine and Talor had been behind Kiton’s death.
He wanted to reach through the phone, wrap his hands around the woman’s neck and squeeze, let thorns bloom in her lungs—watch her choke on her own blood as his vines strangled her heart.
This damned woman was the cause of his Soulbond’s pain. He would end her.
Lucien dragged a shaking hand over his mouth. Green sparks crackled along his fingers, his control fraying.
"I am not attached to her," Lucien lied, voice barely showing the fear and rage within him.
"I care for her as a scientist would care for a subject, or a doctor for a patient—nothing more.
I am trying to see her lifespan increase and would hate for something to happen to put her health in more danger.
She is but one patient in a slew of hundreds.
But ultimately, the anomaly that is Vesperin Vox," he stressed her true last name, the name he wanted etched onto his heart, "cannot be recreated.
It would be wise to ensure her safety and health. "
The lies tasted bitter. But the truth would kill him.
Sabine hummed. "Very well, Dr. Quenlan. If you believe that playing the role of an ill-suited psychologist is beneficial in conjunction with doctor, then play your part.
But do not forget who owns you both. Blackfall Industries has hands in many pockets.
It would be wise to keep your heart off the line, especially when hers is already doomed. "
Rin set the forget-me-nots on the ornate, polished nightstand in the hotel room, placing them by her useless phone. She had stuffed it in her bag out of habit, knowing it couldn’t work on Sibeth.
To contact anyone off-planet, she’d have to find an Earth embassy, which had high-powered projection devices—only, they were expensive as fuck. That made her think of the Sibeth coin Lucien had left in her bag, and her stomach flipped.
The quiet, reserved doctor who had become her pillar was taking care of her, even planets away.
Rin had her hands firmly locked around Lucien now and would never let him go. She was only sad that it had taken something so tragic to drive them together.
She sat heavily on the bed, the cool black silk of the sheets against her bare thighs. The lighting in the hotel room was dim, a singular strip of hidden mood lights tucked along the upper part of the walls, making the sensual air of the room dark and thick.
After the ship had landed on the small, private runway on Sibeth, a large car with tinted windows had been waiting for her and Plin.
Human personnel had packed their bags away for them and driven them to the hotel—a towering block of black crystal in the middle of sin.
Out of the darkened windows of the car, she had spied flashing neon lights, sinful croons that beckoned freely.
Bars and nightclubs and brothels. Sibeth had it all.
The streets were paved with black asphalt, gleaming and pristine.
She had seen succubi and incubi lingering on street corners, sparkles in their purple eyes as they called out.
So different from what Rin had imagined—they seemed to want to be there.
But she guessed that was so. Incubi and succubi lived off sex. Literally.
Rin reached forward, brushing a finger over the soft petals of the flowers, unrest simmering in her blood from the too-quiet hotel room. It was cold, and the pajama shorts she had changed into after her quick shower revealed pebbles of chill on her pale legs.
She had made it further than he had.
Somehow, that didn’t help the grief inside her.
Rin stood, walking to the large windows curving around the walls of the hotel.
It was dark, and she found the control panel next to it, clicking a switch at random.
Soft, sultry music filled the room. She wrinkled her nose, trying the next button.
Thankfully, this one worked. The curving window whirred as the tint left, revealing the breathtaking expanse of the capital.
Her hotel room was on the thirty-seventh floor, almost at the top. She could see everything from here.
The pointed tips of the black high-rises—the smallest was even larger than anything to be found on Earth. The high-speed floating tracks that used electromagnetic gravity waves crossed over each other, hovering in midair as sleek trains whizzed by.
And in the very center of it all:
A towering palace. As it rose to the sky—hued with inky black and speckled purples, the twin moons obscured by the neon haze of smog that enveloped the city—it grew larger, like an upside-down bowl.
Lights flickered, and she imagined King Soltren of Sibeth pacing along his throne room, filled with concubines and jewels.
A knock on her hotel room door jolted her from her awed staring at the city. The black fibers of the rug tucked under the large bed tickled her bare feet as she walked to the door.
She opened it, revealing the dim lighting in the hall, and Plin, standing on the other side. The pilot was dressed in black pants and a satin shirt, patterned with cheetah print. She hid her grimace. Sleazy, much?
She arched a brow, wrapping an arm around her stomach to hide herself away. She wore another of Kit’s shirts, and her nipples tightened from the chill, brushing the fabric. She didn’t get a bad vibe from Plin, but awkwardness filled the air as she stared up at him.
"I wanted to let you know I’m going out for the night… Just in case you needed me." He tucked a hand in his pocket.
"Okay," she replied.
He sighed, shaking his head. "Loosen up, Blackfall. We’re on the planet of sin. Go out, have fun. Forget. We’re here for two weeks, might as well make the most of it."
Rin eyed the forget-me-nots on the nightstand table. "Thanks for telling me. I’ll be okay here." She started to shut the door.