Chapter 84: Morning, With Poison Still Singing in Our Veins
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I ca back to consciousness like a stone reluctantly surfacing from the bottom of a dream-drenched ocean. Limbs heavy. Skull fogged. Mouth dry as a desert wrapped in a drought. And most importantly—alone.
No Kimchi cling-wrapped around . No Sophia curled at my side with predatory affection. Just , a bed, and the echoing aftermath of Sophia’s pharmaceutical war cri masquerading as a cocktail.
Groaning like a man whose liver had filed a resignation letter, I shuffled toward the bathroom, half-mummified in blankets and regret. Morning rituals were accomplished through sheer chanical will—teeth, face, soul, all scrubbed. I erged from the bedroom a slightly less dead man.
Then it hit .
A scent.
Warm. Savory. Culinary euphoria made solid. Like hope had taken up frying eggs downstairs.
Following the siren call of breakfast, I descended into the heart of Sophia’s lair, where the dining room glead like a showroom ad for "Functionally Tyrannical Wealth." She was already there, seated with the poise of a warlord on vacation. Mug in hand. Eyes locked onto her datapad. Smile ready the mont I entered, like she knew.
"Good morning, Irvine," she said with a softness that felt illegally dostic. "That was... one of the best sleeps I’ve ever had. Thank you."
There was no sarcasm in it. No calculated toneplay. Just the raw, sleepy gratitude of a woman who got to sleep near her obsession without dying. Love really is chemical warfare.
"You hungry?" she added, gesturing lazily to the table. "I had my chef make you sothing hearty."
I grunted in agreent and slid into a chair, pouring myself a cup of tea from the pot that had sohow already known to be there. I was just about to take my first sip when—
"ELIAS!" Sophia scread like she was trying to scare away demons.
I nearly threw the cup into my face.
Seconds later, the man himself arrived.
Elias. Middle-aged. Magnificent mustache. Chef hat. Apron. Eyebrows set to "perpetually shocked." He walked in from the kitchen like he was entering a cri scene. The mont his eyes landed on —still mostly naked, freshly post-poisoned, and seated at his mistress’s table—he stopped moving entirely.
"You summoned , Lady Sophia?" he asked with the barely-contained panic of a butler in a vampire movie.
"Yes," Sophia said sweetly. "My paramour is famished. Fetch his breakfast, would you?"
"Paramour?" Elias echoed, his soul briefly leaving his body.
This poor man. Ten years. Ten years of silent devotion and industrial-level food preparation, never once joined at breakfast by anything but datapads and disdain. And now here I was. Nipple-out. God-touched. Sipping her tea.
He looked at Sophia. Then at . Then at her again. Then back at like I was the reason his pension just got cancelled.
Regaining composure through sheer professionalism and possibly fear of being turned into breakfast, he said, "Of course, my lady. Though... may I ask if he is the reason I was forced to wear a blindfold upon entry this morning?"
Sophia didn’t blink. "I am your employer, Elias. If I command you to wear a blindfold into the sun, you do it. It was to protect you from sensitive information. That is all. Now go."
Her voice was all sunshine and cordiality, but Elias was sweating bullets as he fled the room like he was escaping a hostage situation.
He returned shortly with a towering plate of food, dropped it off, and fled again, only daring one last, wounded glance at Sophia before vanishing.
I bit into a hash brown like it owed money.
"So... you aware that guy’s in love with you, right?"
Sophia took a sip of her drink and nodded. "Of course. Most males who look upon long enough fall into so iteration of affection. I usually convert them. Their love curdles into servitude. Elias, however, has chanical augntations. His geno is incompatible. The implants distort the conversion process. He would liquefy."
"You would find a poetic way to say, ’His body would fail spectacularly.’"
Sophia arched an eyebrow, voice turning coy. "Why, my darling... are you perhaps jealous?"
I scoffed. "Jealous? Of Mustache McSteelbrain? He can keep his hopeless devotion. Let ’em all love you. They’ll never have what I do. You know that. I know that. The Hive definitely knows that."
"Careful," she purred. "Try to sound any more smug and I’ll have to punish you for it."
"Stop flirting before I make you regret breakfast," I muttered, stealing a strip of bacon.
Then: a dangerous thought bubbled up.
"So... what was the ’sensitive information’ you blindfolded poor Elias over?"
Sophia’s lips curled in satisfaction. "The large blue creature that was crushing Kimchi in my living room."
I choked on my toast.
"Shit—Kimchi!"
I bolted.
Sapphire was still there, lounging like a psychic sphinx, her massive fra coiled protectively beside Kimchi—who was stirring, barely upright. Onyx lay beside them, murmuring softly. Babysitting, apparently.
Sapphire turned her head at my approach. I rewarded her with slow, deliberate nose scratches. "Good girl. Thanks for keeping the murder lizard pinned down all night. You can head ho."
With a psionic flick, Sapphire vanished into my Mindspace like smoke curling back into a lamp.
Kimchi, blinking sleepily, sat up with all the grace of a drunk eel. The mont her eyes landed on , her face blood into a smile so bright it could erase galaxies.
"Good morning, my love," she murmured. "Why was Kimchi trapped beneath the psionic beast when she awoke?"
"You don’t rember?" I said, gently helping her up. She imdiately resud the natural position of wrapping herself around like a clingy scarf.
"You drank a fuckton of Sophia’s poison at my request. Got all wild and feral. Tried to go hunt random humans in the hallway. I had to deploy the cuddle cannon."
She blinked. "I rember drinking the poison. And then... sleep. Deep. Hive-hallucination level sleep."
"That tracks," I said, running my hand through her hair. "You didn’t do anything too awful. Just got a little bitey."
Kimchi grumbled but didn’t resist as I walked her back to the dining room. Onyx declined food—claid she’d already eaten, which was either true or code for "I watched soone else eat and absorbed the mory nutrients."
I sat Kimchi down in my chair and let her keep eating my al. Which was fine. I still had tea and hash brown crumbs. The universal currency of forgiveness.
Sophia raised her mug. "No need to apologize, my sweet. Though you’ve reminded of a question."
I motioned for her to continue, sipping politely.
"That creature—the one who subdued Kimchi. What is it? I know it. I feel it. But no Hiveform in my mories matches it."
"Ah," I said with a smile. "That’s Sapphire. She’s... complicated. Born from a fusion of my unique psionic properties and an obscene, unethical, probably-should’ve-been-illegal amount of Crystal’s psychic energy. She’s technically... our kid?"
Sophia nearly dropped her mug.
A child.
Not taphorical. Not cultist. Not taphor wrapped in devotion.
Theirs.
She clutched at her chest like her heart had tried to escape.
"I use Sapphire for counter-Kimchi operations," I added. "She’s the only other living thing Kimchi doesn’t fully hate."
Kimchi tried to grumble through her mouthful of toast but knew I was right and said nothing.
We basked in weird dosticity for a few minutes before I rembered the whole reason we were talking.
"Oh, right—Soph. I need a favor. A pretty big one."
Her eyes glead. "If it’s within my power, it’s already yours."
"Right, so last night on the way here, checkpoint guard asked for ID. I may have told him I was an Arcon of a planet. Think you can get so credentials to back that bluff up?"
Sophia lit up like a villain hearing their favorite the song.
"It’s fortuitous you told this morning. I happen to be visiting a noblewoman in the northern hemisphere today. She owes a rather humiliating favor—sothing involving blackmail, you understand. She also has exactly the sort of bureaucratic pull you need. If you co along, I’ll introduce you."
"Sounds like a hoot," I said, stealing the last sausage off Kimchi’s plate.
She nearly bit my hand off.
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An hour later I stood half-naked and fashion-impaired, staring into a wardrobe the size of a bunker and yelling down the hall like an entitled noble.
"Sophia! Get one of your fashion cultists in here! I’m not risking diplomatic failure by picking the wrong shirt!"
I knew how to dress casually. I had a vibe. A jacket. A pair of boots. But formal? Noble-visit attire? No fucking clue.
The elevator dinged.
Two familiar presences stepped out. The air tingled.
"Apollo!!" one of them shouted, already running toward .
"Woah. Life of the party herself. Hey, Keyla."
Keyla. Four foot eleven inches of relentless charm, with a grin that could revive the dead and new purple hair like a mood ring gone rogue. She radiated positivity like a weapon.
She, like many of the cultist won, experienced my "boon" differently than the n. The n were like drones: devoted, respectful, mildly terrified. But the won? Their emotional cocktail was more... complicated.
Keyla in particular gave off pragma and familial affection with the sort of warmth that made her feel more like an extrely sweet daughter than an obsessive cultist. Which made her easy to talk to.
Then ca the second one.
"G-good morning, Daddy," said Samantha, failing spectacularly to make eye contact.
I groaned. "You’re seriously trying to Pavlov into associating arousal with trauma, aren’t you?"
Kimchi, from behind , growled softly.
It was going to be that kind of morning.
And I hadn’t even picked a damn tie yet.
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