Strixes

Evelyn III

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Evelyn. My name is Rumi Shiratori. Going forward, I will serve as both your handler and medical overseer while you remain in Neptune."

I frowned. I had been told that I would continue to work with Project Phoenix, but when I brought this up to her, she shook her head. "They will be handling your remote monitoring, and every three months you'll return to Mayfield for an Integration Process Full Body scan, but otherwise I will be going over the normal fieldwork. Project Phoenix has also been assigned more work, though I'm not privy on the details."

"I see." I looked her up and down. "Shiratori. Why do I know that name?"

"My husband is the Branch Director of Neptune, but I assure you that I have earned all of my qualifications."

I believed her. Sword didn't tolerate nepotism.

"So I'm being assigned to Neptune. Any reason?"

Rumi smiled. "We believe two or three of the progenitors have taken up residence in our city, and there's been confirmed that an unregistered lycan pack. There are also rumors of... Well, I shouldn't be spreading rumors. You lived in Neptune as a child, didn't you? I guess this will be a welcome back."

The welcome back came with a ten-hour flight.

Neptune was a port city, with large cargo ships moving in and out of the ports at all hours of the night. Sometimes during the day too, though the natural walls that surrounded the city block out the sight of those ship.

When West Artemis was first colonized five hundred or so years ago, the forest didn't exist. The island that Neptune would be built in the crater, surrounded on four sides by the mountain.

Across the top of the Neptune walls were a set of train tracks. It would take you to the top, then down to the docks, and back again, four times a day at select times. On the weekend, it ran two times. Along with the two sets of the track was one freeway over the mountain, allowing cars to come and go in the same way. Much smaller dirt roads and walking paths crisscrossed the mountains in every direction, all the better to enjoy a bit of nature however one would like.

The Neptune Forest had become an attraction for the people of the city in its own right. It offered an escape from the city while being less than an hour's drive out of a twenty-minute train ride. If someone got deep enough into the forest, the trees would obscure their view. They wouldn't be able to see the city at all. It felt like being in the middle of an ancient forest, hardly touched by man.

When the forest had grown significantly, animals had been taken out of cryo. Artemis was a unique world in that it didn't have any native animal populations. The only living creatures native to Artemis were the sea life and insects. So the colonists filled the forests with rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, elk, deer, owls, sparrows, blackbirds, and grey wolves.

I suppose the wolves were put there to keep the other species in check as a natural predators. Almost every weekend, I would drive or take a train to the Neptune forest and spend half a day there when I was a teenager. Even more than the beaches, I preferred the trees. Not that I didn't spend plenty of time at the beaches. Neptune had some great beaches on the other side of the walls.

It was Tuesday, April 1st, 2713, and the sun was shining. It was humid, but under the shade of the tree, it wasn't too hot. It was the kind of day that made me sure summer was fast approaching. If I didn't know any better, I would say summer was already here.

I had gotten in the day before and after being away for so long, I wanted to see the tropical Neptune Forest again. I didn't expect to run into a very attractive young girl and I certainly didn't expect her to hit on me. For years now, I had been an old lady. Old people in general didn't see a lot of action in the bed unless it was from other old people, and that wasn't a sight I wanted to see. I didn't care how I looked, so I shied away from those urges.

Things were different now. I was young and strong. And she was a blonde, blue-haired beauty, the kind of girl I would have gone for when I was twenty. I had a weakness for pretty boys and girls and Bianca fit that to a T.

I didn't know how it started, but it ended with Bianca dragging me off the path and to a small meadow out of the way. It was beautiful, filled with golden flowers, surrounded by dense trees, their leaves bright green.

It was there that she ambushed me. Before I knew what was happening, Bianca had her shirt on the ground and she was taking her bra off. We were both sixteen and it might have just been my teenage, hormone-ridden body, but her tits were firm and her stomach was toned. She slipped out of her green pants easily enough, wearing a lacy pair of panties. She undid her ponytail, letting her long blonde hair slip free, and pulled down those paints.

Then she jumped me, in a literal sense. She was on top of me before I could process what was happening. Then we were a tightening knot of flesh being drawn together. Her hands were tangled in my hair, pulling me closer. Her breath was hot, and it was in my mouth and she tasted strangely like strawberries. Her breasts smashed against my bare chest which she just uncovered. She smelled like flowers and ripe apples, a musk that I hadn't noticed despite spending the last hour walking to find this meadow.

There was no hesitation as Bianca moved. There was no doubt as she pushed me down and pressed her lips into mine. One of my hands was on the back of her neck, tangled in her flowing blonde hair. The other was at her waist before she grabbed it and slid it into the wetness between her legs. She had done this before, so much that she seemed comfortable. She was aggressive, demanding to be in command. She pushed herself against me, flesh slamming onto wet flesh. It was a good thing there was no one else around because the sounds were unmistakable.

I didn't know why, but the thought that she wasn't a virgin didn't cross my mind. She had had a parade of boyfriends over the last few years, so I guess I should have assumed. Then she rolled me over so she was on the bottom and wrapped her legs around my waist. I didn't think much after that.

Not until we were laying naked next to each other, breathing deeply, did I think to ask. Bianca was curled next to me, and if I didn't know her as well as I did, I never would have guessed that she was the sharp-tongued monster that haunted the school. It had taken me two lives, but as we lay together and I stared up at the cloudless blue sky, I felt satisfied.

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen," she snapped back. The age of consent in Aquroya was sixteen, so I was in the clear. Bianca pulled her head up next to mine and smirked. "Want to go again?"

Boy did I ever. We did it two more times before the sun was pulled down below the horizon. The sky was still blue, but it was darkening. It wouldn't be night for some time, maybe not a few more hours, but I didn't want to navigate through the woods at night.

It was a nice, relaxing day. If Rumi hadn't called and told me she was going to be late in setting up my apartment, I wouldn't have gone out to explore my childhood and had a great time. I wished Bianca the best of luck with her last two years of schooling, and I went to wait for the train. Or that had been the plan, but Rumi was waiting for me in her Triumph, a luxury sports car that looked like a red BMW 328 Roadster from Earth, only a lot sleeker.

"How did you know I was here?" I demanded.

Rumi laughed and pointed at my linker. "We're tracking you. All our hunters are tracked, you know that. We'll get you a private linker soon." It was a nice drive down the wall.

We stopped in front of a building that looked like a Parisian apartment, only it was three times as tall. It was made of concrete, but it was painted to resemble a Parisian building. The paint job was done so well, that I could hardly tell the difference. The building had an underground parking garage, the entrance of which was right in front of it. We drove down a circular road until we hit the bottom. It was one giant parking lot, with two designated spaces for each apartment, and a large amount of free space.

I whistled. "Damn. You're hooking me up."

Rumi smirked. "Well, you did get rated Diamond for your combat rating. There have been less than ten people in all of our history that have been rated that high."

Even when I was young, I had been ranked gold. I could only attribute my newfound success to my enhanced body.

In the underground parking lot, I was even given my own parking lot. "Now I just need a car."

Rumi over at me as we got out. "What do you mean? We just came in your car."

... "You're giving me a Triumph?"

"As long as you work in Neptune," she confirmed. Well damn. I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

There were four elevators and eleven floors. However, the eleventh flood button was grey, unlike the colorful 1 through 10. Rumi pressed 10 and up we went.

When the door opened, the first thing I registered was this appeared to be some kind of penthouse. A modern and futuristic mix of a penthouse. It reminded me of the very old Hunger Games movie from Earth. When the main characters arrived in the capital and got to see their suite at the top of the tribute tower. There was a certainly uncomfortable comparison I could make, but at least I wasn't a tribute about to be sent to my death.

"Alaric, I'll show you your room. So you can put all your things away," Rumi said.

The room was twice the size of my old room. It even had a wide and spacious closet that seemed to be full of clothes. An adjourning bathroom that wasn't connected to anywhere else in the apartment. The bed was ten times as soft as my old bed. I put my begs on the ground by my bed, deciding that I would set my room up later. Right now, I wanted to speak with Rumi before she went.

"You have a fridge full of food, and your first month of rent is paid. You will get paid twice a week, so we will expect you to pay starting next month. At a reduced rate of course."

"Reduced rate? Why?"

"This building is owned by Sword," Rumi said. She turned to look at me and smiled. "Everyone here works for Sword in one way or another."

So I would have to live near other agents? I guess it could be worse.

***

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