The mechanical roar of the black sedan echoed in the parking lot and reached Zayzann’s sensitive ears. He shifted out of his human form and back into his comfortable, natural state once the car was out of the lot. Zayzann’s crest stood up more so than normal and was held upwards by the tensed muscles in his face that gave him a severe, agitated appearance. The boxes of food were haphazardly placed on the top shelf of the refrigerator, and he slammed the door closed with unnecessary force.
“Hey, watch it!” Byxx narrowly avoided getting slapped in the face by an errant wing tip as Zayzann turned away to leave the kitchen. “Level with me, Zay. What’s going on with you?”
Zayzann had no words for this feeling. Whatever fragments he could cobble together seemed inadequate to fully describe the rush of thoughts that bombarded him. Was it jealousy, pride, or pain? No single word fit the bill. Zayzann shook out his limbs and wings, hoping to drive this annoying emotion out of his mind.
“I don’t like him.” Zayzann admitted as he padded away from Byxx. “He’s getting too close to Iris.”
“I haven’t seen him, but the human sounds like a friendly chap.” Byxx offered. “Besides, he’s her boss. Not even that, her boss’s boss. I don’t see the harm in him being nice to her.”
“You don’t get it at all, do you?” Zayzann ruffled his feathers and practically plowed past Khazmine, who deftly avoided his departure.
“What’s wrong with him then?” Khazmine looked to Byxx for insight, only to be met with his shaking head.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
The bedroom was just as he’d left it that morning, with one notable difference. Iris reeked of that intrusive human, and must have picked up his scent when he’d carried her from the car. Zayzann extended his wings as much as he could safely spread them in the modest bedroom and flapped gently, releasing his own scent to mask the intruder’s. His efforts were minimally successful, and so he resorted to snuggling beside Iris more so than he usually did to overpower the smell.
“Hot…” Iris murmured in a fitful sleep. “So hot…”
She tossed and turned to escape from Zayzann’s smothering grasp. This wriggling motion was new and distressing to Zayzann, who released her from his arms and shot up from the bed to pace the length of the room. Unlike a nest back on Zhalterra, there were no loose bits or structures to tweak and adjust to occupy his wakeful hours, so Zayzann padded out to the spare room with a pillow to sleep on the floor alone.
The rich aroma of cinnamon waffles reached the spare room from the kitchen, rustling Zayzann from his slumber. The roommates made a merry morning together with a modest breakfast of waffles and eggs, with the majority of the eggs going to Zayzann. Byxx had insisted that Iris enjoy a second helping, and Khazmine excused herself from the table early to run an errand.
“Does she have somewhere to be?” Iris asked between bites of syrup-drenched waffle. “Is she still mad about missing the Fourth of July?”
“I don’t think that’s it, love.” Byxx managed a strained smile. “It’s just that you’re barely home these days. Maybe she missed you.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.” Iris looked down at her mound of sliced waffle bits and twiddled her fork among the pieces. “I’m so used to living alone that I keep forgetting about everyone else’s needs…”
Byxx packaged the leftover breakfast and Zayzann cleared the table to prepare for their day at home together. The remaining roommates spent the entire day working on adjusting clothes for Byxx and Zayzann, with both men scrapping diligently for their respective outfits. In all, Byxx ended up with the most items, while Zayzann had the nicer of the clothes. Even if Byxx had more than him, Iris fawned so much over the new clothes Zayzann was wearing that he put any jealousy out of his mind.
Daylight waned by the time Khazmine returned home, bearing two canvas shopping bags and a small plastic bag of goods. She secretly pocketed something in a plastic package from the smaller bag before presenting a cornucopia of produce to the group. The fresh fruits and vegetables she bore were a welcome surprise, though Iris did question where Khazmine had gotten the funds to pay for them.
“I came by it honestly.” Khazmine admitted, but failed to elaborate. Byxx detected what looked like a flush of embarrassment from Khazmine, but he avoided commenting. “Please enjoy these with your meals. I have observed that your diet lacks proper nutrition in the following areas…”
Khazmine nagged at Iris, who was piecing together a creamy yellow polyester polo for Byxx, and trying to blot out the incessant droning from the Augment. Iris looked to Byxx and Zayzann to object, but they remained unmoved by her silent pleas to stop the lecturing Khazmine. If anything, they sided with their mechanical roommate and joined in on giving Iris a hard time.
“It’s not that I don’t like fresh fruit and vegetables.” Iris bemoaned after running another seam on her sewing machine. “It’s just so expensive. How can I justify spending the money on something that’ll rot if I don’t eat it fast enough?”
Zayzann and Khazmine shared a look of understanding between them, and silently agreed to ensure that more fresh food entered the apartment. For her part, Khazmine could earn money on the side, while Zayzann texted Gerry to arrange for fishing trips this week and next.
Byxx remained ignorant of the conspiracy, as he was absorbed in assisting Iris with pinning garments and staining rings of Victorian Velvet makeup along the collars and sleeve openings of his clothes. His smile broadened at the depth of his cleverness. Surely, he reasoned, this would enhance his camouflage.
The roommates happily continued sewing clothes and doing little fashion shows for Iris to check their respective fits. No one paid much attention to Khazmine, who used the opportunity to abscond with her purchase unobserved. She fled to the living room and powered the laptop to resume her activities in relative secrecy. Once she had finished, she discarded the remains of the plastic packaging from her purchase as the remaining roommates emerged from the spare room.
Iris and Zayzann cooked dinner together in the snug kitchen, and Zayzann shifted into human form, as not to overcrowd Iris at the stove. She demonstrated how to make poached fish, au gratin potatoes, and homemade applesauce for him. Once again, Iris had selected a meal with soft, palatable foods that Zayzann could more easily enjoy. He gave off a contented, low-pitched rumble at the realization, like a cat’s purr.
Byxx and Khazmine tidied the living room while they waited, and Byxx sidled close to the Augment to ask something that had been bothering him for days.
“So, are you going to ask her tonight?” Byxx leaned in close to whisper, forgetting how sensitive her hearing was. “About the device?”
“I hadn’t planned to spoil the evening.” Khazmine sighed and produced the USB drive from her pocket. “But I suppose now’s as good a time as any. Miss Iris?” she called from the living room. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure, Khaz. Just a second.” Iris wiped her freshly washed hands on a bar towel and strode into the living room to see Khazmine stooped low to the ground. “What is it?”
“I found this… device.” Khazmine held out the USB in front of herself, so that Iris could see it. “Do you know what it is?”
“Oh my goodness!” Iris gasped aloud enough to draw Zayzann’s attention from the bubbling potatoes in the kitchen. “I forgot I had this. Where did you find it?”
“It was in the living room.” Khazmine stretched the truth until it threatened to snap. “I was curious if it was important.”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s expensive.” Iris reached out for the drive and Khazmine eagerly dropped it into her outstretched palm. “It belongs to my supervisor, Mr. Maker. I must have mislaid it when Piper was messing around in his office a while back.”
Khazmine shot a glance at Byxx, and then to Zayzann. None of the roommates wanted to break Iris’s chain of thought, and each allowed her to continue explaining.
“Oh no, he’ll be so angry with me if he finds out I had it all this time.” Iris fretted, wringing her dried hands as if they were still wet. “What should I do? I didn’t mean to take it. It was an accident, I swear.”
Khazmine scanned the frightened woman’s face as Iris began spiraling. If she stood by and did nothing, it was a certainty that Iris would whip herself up into a panic attack.
“Oh god, am I going to get fired? Or go to jail?” Iris began shaking all over. “Or worse, fired and jail?”
“Not at all, honey.” Byxx swooped in for a hug and tried to use his warmth and containment to calm her frayed nerves. “Just put it back where you found it and—”
“No.” Khazmine insisted. “Put it somewhere hidden, near where it should have been. And let him find it on his own.”
Zayzann and Byxx both stared at Khazmine, who raised a brow at the pair of them.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Khazmine huffed indignantly. “It’s a sound strategy.”
“Would that work?” Iris managed to calm herself enough to ask. “I’m not very good at this sort of thing.”
“Nonsense. You’re a very capable person.” Khazmine comforted with a pat on the shoulder with a gloved hand. “You’ll do just fine, I’m sure of it.”
Khazmine coached her on strategy during dinner, and Iris retired to bed early to make the dawn bus tomorrow morning. The other roommates didn’t have a suitable counter proposal to Khazmine’s idea, and each tried to let go of their anxieties over sending Iris off on her own to execute the plan. It was decided late that evening that they would have to wait and see what Iris could do on her own, as none of them could risk interfering at her office directly.
The night was long, humid, and noisy, with city sounds seeping in through the shabby apartment windows. Once Zayzann and Byxx finally managed to fall asleep, Khazmine crept into the bedroom to get one last look at Iris before starting her latest caper. Iris laid underneath one of Zayzann’s outstretched wings, enjoying a peaceful rest with slow, even breaths.
I am sorry to have doubted you.
Khazmine ran her gloved fingers along the small object in her pocket, tracing the outline of a USB drive that was identical to the one Iris had found in Mr. Maker’s office. She smiled a weak, pained grin at Iris before departing.
Please forgive me, little one, but you need this insurance… I don’t know how else to help you.
Khazmine winced when she departed from the bedroom, tiptoed through the living room, and approached the entryway like a silent specter. She shoved a folded piece of paper with her ragged handwriting on it into her pocket, to go with the duplicate USB drive. The front door squeaked at Khazmine’s departure, but it was not loud enough to wake any of the roommates, and she disappeared into the muggy night.
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