“I’m Zayne, her roommate.” Zayzann’s eyes narrowed at the sight of Alden holding Iris’s hand so tightly. “Is everything okay here?”
“I’m fine now, Zay.” Iris looked up at him with bleary, reddened eyes. “Someone tried to follow me home tonight.”
“What? What do you—”
“Do you mind if we come in first?” Alden interrupted. “She’s freezing, and the rain’s still coming down hard out here.”
Zayzann moved away from blocking the entrance, just as someone closed a door in the distance. If Iris had to guess, she thought Byxx must have darted into either the bedroom or the spare room to hide and avoid being seen by an unfamiliar human. Alden glanced curiously around the apartment and tried to learn as much as possible during this rare foray inside.
“You should get out of those wet clothes and take a hot shower.” Zayzann advised. “You can tell us all about it after you’re all nice and warm.”
“Thanks, Zay.” Iris limped into the hallway. “I’ll just be a few minutes. Please be comfortable, sir. Make yourself at home.”
Alden coughed and stood on the welcome mat in the entryway, trying not to bring his sopping wet self in to dampen the carpet. Zayzann spied his subtle shivering and rolled his eyes. A bar towel came whipping at Alden from the kitchen, which he caught with ease.
“At least dry your hair.” Zayzann muttered through a sneer. “Stay there and I’ll get you a proper towel.”
Alden perused the framed photos on the walls, soaking up as many details as he could, like a curious sponge. All the photos were of Iris, her family, and some of her very old friends. She was an adorable child, if not a little on the smaller side, but she grew up well in Alden’s opinion. He noticed a peculiar pattern to the arrangement; there was no trace of Zayne in the apartment, as far as photos went.
“You two just move in?” Alden asked as Zayzann returned with a large bath towel and one of Howard’s untailored shirts and pants in his arms. “All these photos are old, and you’re not in any of them.”
“How did you say you knew Iris, again?” Zayzann dodged his question with another question, hoping Alden would play into his ploy. “She called you ‘sir,’ so I’m guessing you work in her building.”
“I’m an office manager at GC&S, yes.” Alden admitted as he dried his luxuriant auburn hair with the bar towel and slicked it back in place. “Iris works for one of my subordinates.”
“She deserves a raise.” Zayzann commented as he handed Alden the fresh towel. “For all the garbage you people put her through.”
“Oh, did she say something to you?” Alden asked with genuine curiosity.
“She doesn’t have to.” Zayzann reclaimed the bar and bath towels curtly and handed Alden a hopelessly oversized shirt and pants for him to change into. “I hear her crying practically every night from that wretched place. If it’s not her boss leering at her, it’s that demented red head tormenting her and the young hires. What kind of place are you people running, anyway?”
“I, that is, she’d asked me to leave it alone.” Alden whipped off his damp white office shirt and draped it into the kitchen sink. He raised a curious eyebrow at Zayzann and tilted his head. “Do you mind?”
Zayzann got a good eyeful of this rival’s impressive build. Alden stood tall for a human at nearly six-foot-three, and was broader shouldered than Zayzann, but the Paxoram was undaunted. He was leaner and more athletic looking than this human, and he’d guessed that Iris would much prefer a nimble partner over a bulkier one. He turned away to give Alden some privacy as he heard the distinctive squeak of the bedroom door close.
“She’s out of the shower now.” Zayzann mentioned offhandedly. “Should just be a few minutes.”
“Are you and her—”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Zayzann turned to face Alden at the incomplete question.
“Are you just a friend?” Alden forced himself to ask. “Or something else?”
Zayzann put the kettle to boil on the stovetop. Iris didn’t have an electric kettle, or one of the special machines that made fancy beverages, so they had to make do with what she had. Alden made a note of the sparseness of the furnishings as Zayzann struggled for an answer to get this person to stop digging around in their lives.
“We’re roommates.” Zayzann stressed. Unfortunately for him, Zayzann was unfamiliar with the term ‘boyfriend’ and was more interested in maintaining the secret of their cohabitation than in strange human semantics. “I thought I said that when you came in.”
“You did, I just wanted to be sure.” Alden allowed a small smirk to escape his tailored façade. He cinched the pants as best as he could but looked more like a kid playing ‘dress-up’ than a powerful manager standing in Iris’s kitchen. “You must be with Cassie then.”
“Yes, Khaz lives here too.” Zayzann confirmed slowly, with an arched brow, now fully confused at the bizarre line of questioning from this potential rival. “We share this place together.”
“Ah, excellent.” Alden sighed before coughing again. “Glad to hear it.”
The pert whistling of the kettle interrupted their banter, demanding relief from the bracingly hot burner. Zayzann poured three mugs of tisane for everyone, adding pinches of herbs from Iris’s special containers on the pantry wall rack. He handed Alden a mug of the aromatic beverage and directed him to sit on the couch in the living room. It was fortunate that Byxx had already tidied his bedding from last night, or else that would have required an explanation. The pair rested awkwardly, with Zayzann perched in the guest chair and Alden sitting alone on the couch.
Alden and Zayzann sipped their respective drinks silently, until Iris joined them from the bedroom. She wore an oversized, casual steel-blue top and comfortable stretchy gray pants, and her hair puffed out from being rigorously towel-dried by an enthusiastic, unseen archfiend. Iris sat beside Alden on the couch, before Zayzann even realized the mistake he’d made in sitting alone in his preferred chair. He glowered at Alden just as the front door creaked open and a lumbering Khazmine trudged inside.
“Cassie, you’re home.” Iris set her drink down on the coffee table and rushed over to see her ragged roommate. “Are you alright? Did he hurt you?”
“He won’t be bothering you again, Iris.” Khazmine forced her voice to remain even after the shocking pain of her encounter. “Everything has been taken care of.”
Her response was cryptic, at best, and not at all convincing to Alden, who made a significant effort to determine what wasn’t quite right about this second roommate. There was something about her that was off, but Alden was at a loss as to what that might be. He watched the pair reunite before asking any questions of his own.
“Who was he, then?” Alden asked accusingly. “Some beaux of yours, Cassie?”
Khazmine resented the implication that she was in any way at fault for the appearance of another Augment on Earth but steeled herself from snapping at the intrusive human. Several of her delicate systems were extensively damaged in the scuffle, and she was leaking hydraulic fluid from one of her internal reservoirs. She had no time for idle banter with this interloper. Alden had given her a plausible excuse for knowing the passenger that approached Iris, and readily pounced on the opportunity.
“We knew each other ages ago, so yes.” Khazmine admitted. Her answer had the benefit of being both true and misleading. “But I can’t stand the sight of him now. I am loathe to believe that he approached Iris with ill intentions, but there it is.”
“You said you called the police.” Alden insisted. “Did you file a report or—”
“Everything has been taken care of.” Khazmine doubled down, stared at Alden, and tilted her head toward Iris without breaking eye contact. She indicated that this topic was upsetting to Iris, and she was hoping he dropped it. “He won’t be coming around anymore.”
The clock on the wall chimed the lateness of the hour, only to be interrupted by forceful coughing from Alden. He apologized for lingering so long in her home and for borrowing the clothing. Iris found an impromptu belt for him to use to keep his pants up and thanked him again for the lift home.
“It was nice meeting your roommates.” Alden waved back at the pair. “And I’ll be sending a car for you tomorrow morning. Does 7:30 work?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.” Iris nodded. “Take care getting home, and I hope you feel better soon.”
Alden paced over to the entrance and stopped for a last look around before making a dash for his SUV while the rain hit a lull. After finally getting rid of the invader, Khazmine called out for Byxx to join them in the living room, so that she could explain what happened.
“So, you’re saying another Augment is on Earth, and looking for a Summoner?” Byxx pieced together and summed up what happened. “And Iris is one of those people?”
“Yes, that’s how she brought you here.” Khazmine elaborated. “From what I can tell, he’s either a Wayward Traveler, or his Summoner must have passed away, and he became desperate to find someone to send him back home.”
Byxx was about to ask what she meant by ‘Wayward Traveler,’ but Zayzann quickly interjected with a question of his own.
“But why Iris?” Zayzann chimed in, preening his freshly emerged feathers from his perch on the guest chair. “Surely, there are other people with this talent.”
“I don’t know.” Khazmine confessed. “The only humans I know of that can call other beings are Iris and her late mother, Amaranth. I haven’t seen any others who can do it. They may be the last ones who can.”
“What about Lily?” Iris inquired with a hopeful tilt of her brows and eager eyes. “Could she help?”
“No. I’ve already looked into that possibility.” Khazmine averted her gaze. “She doesn’t have it.”
“Blast, then Iris really is our only way home.” Byxx winced. “Not that I’m in any hurry to leave, but you have to live to be two hundred, as far as I’m concerned, Iris.”
“But what happened to the Augment?” Iris asked. “You said you took care of him?”
“Yes, you could call it that.” Khazmine was being cagey, and Iris’s stare insisted on a more straightforward response. “I deactivated his camouflage matrix and removed his, well, I made it impossible to use his adaptive camouflage to take any other form than what you saw in the bus shelter earlier.”
“And?” Byxx could tell there was more to the story than what was on offer.
“How do I put this?” Khazmine asked rhetorically. “I neutralized him.”
“I don’t know what that means.” Iris confessed.
“That’s probably for the best, little one.” Khazmine advised, knowing full well not to elaborate on the means with which she had torn the intruding Augment to pieces. “We will need to be alert in case any other Augments or Summons are drawn to your abilities, but for right now, you’re safe, okay?”
The thought that other alien beings might be out in the world, searching for a Summoner, distressed each of the roommates in turn, and left Iris the most worried of all.
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