Chapter 21: Critical Mass — Part 2

“Roxy put you through a workout?” Shadow asked.

Ferret blushed, changing the subject. “I don’t know if I can fight. I’m a good runner, and have done well enough by it.”

Ferret was sincere. He wasn’t much of a fighter. Shadow could see it in his soft hands and gentle eyes. Only his love for Roxy would make him a fighter. Shadow intended to use that love as leverage. “I want you to be able to protect your mate.”

“You mean Roxy, don’t you?” Ferret said.

“Yeah, I mean Roxy. She’s going to be in human form soon, and she’s going to be a fragile soul. You’ll be her husband, and you’ll need to protect her.”

“I think I’m a little young to be a husband.” Ferret said.

Shadow leaned even closer toward Ferret, as if staring through him. “I know a lot about you, boy. You aren’t as young as you think you are. You aren’t a lot of things you think you are. Roxy’s my adopted daughter, and I’ve decided to give her to you. And you’d better learn to take care of her, in case I’m not around to look after either of you.”

“I’m not a lot of things I say I am.” Ferret admitted.

Shadow looked him dead in the eye. “You’re just a kid about to be a man, and you’re scared, is all.”

Ferret looked away angrily. “Humans have such an odd way of simplifying their perspectives. I haven’t been totally honest with you, and it’s hurting me that you think I’m something I’m not.”

“You’re not homosexual are you? Not that I care, really.” Shadow paused in her thoughts, considering. “Cute boy like you could get a lot of action, you know uh . . . ” Shadow let her words trail off.

Her experience in gender had been mostly bisexual, but as a matter of consideration, there were many cultures and individuals who polarized the issue to the point where one might feel allegiance to one gender preference or the other. She wondered if perhaps she might be offending Ferret in some way.

“This isn’t about me being gay.” Ferret said quietly, “It’s about me not being completely human.”

Shadow struggled with a nagging feeling that she had known or suspected Ferret’s hidden truth, but hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself. “Now would be a good time to get this whole mess into focus then, I reckon.” She said, her voice a little cold. “Explain, quickly.” Shadow added when Ferret seemed to be deciding how much he should tell her.

Ferret let out a quiet sigh. He walked to the edge of the room and leaned against the window. He looked into space, his eyes glazed over in memory, behind him the med screen, a low grade computer screen capable of broadcasting low resolution video images, began to glow noticeably. Shadow could feel a tingling vibration of energy on her skin, enough to make her hair stand on end.

“This isn’t easy for me to talk about. I’ve made certain that Roxy can’t listen in. She doesn’t know the whole story, and I don’t want her to. It isn’t a believable story, honestly, but the pictures on the screen behind me should help describe things that I can’t express easily. You will be seeing these details through my eyes, and these eyes have seen through many lenses and watched the course of countless lives. Roxy can confirm the physiology of it, though she doesn’t even grasp the full potential of it. She’s been hiding the truth for me because she loves me. She is very protective of you, but in hiding my secret, she knew she was putting you at risk.

“Even now she has a laser pointed at the base of my skull, in case I should pose a threat to you. Because she can’t hear us, she doesn’t know what I’m saying, or that I love you and could never hurt you. She only let me have my secrets because we share a common factor — the way we store our experiences. Her love for me is why she hasn’t killed me already, because she is incessantly telling me to lift the frequency ban and security overrides, and has charged the laser’s batteries to full. She can hear you now, if you could please tell her to stand down, it would probably save my life.”

“Stand down Roxy, he won’t hurt me.” Shadow raised a hand momentarily; using a hand signal that would confirm to Roxy that she could turn the laser off. “Identify all eccentricities specific to Ferret, please.”