"In fair Verona, where we lay our scene . . ."
Two insomniacs sat in the kitchen . . .
Two twentysomethings slouched . . .
A pair of roommates . . .
A blonde and a brunette . . .
A dragon and a mutant . . .
A Julliard Professor and a hacker . . .
A teacher and a translator . . .
An off Broadway star and a best-selling author . . .
An empath and a telepath . . .
A magic user and a telekinetic . . .
Two friends . . .
***
I stared at the blinking cursor and half-finished lines of text and sighed. All the sentences I’d started were true, but none of them felt right. None of these were going to work.
“What are you doing?” Luna asked, settling in behind me with her chin on my shoulder, staring sleepily at my laptop screen.
“My latest novel jumped to the Times Bestsellers list in less than three weeks and the magazines are begging for an interview . . . again.”
“Don’t they know by now you don’t do in person interviews?” For obvious reasons, she mused privately, or at least it would have been private if she didn’t live with a telepath. And the fact that I was listening was rude, better stop that, damn if I’m slipping I must be tired.
Luna Draconis is my best friend and roommate and has been for a number of years now. She teaches at Julliard by day and stars in off Broadway productions in the evening. She’s also a dragon and magic—totally the normal roommate.
I can’t say I’m much better, honestly. I’m telepathic and telekinetic and a mix of gods only know what else, I’m still figuring it out. As for the rest of the boring details, I’m a translator by day and write bestselling novels under a pseudonym by night.
Oh and I’m a scary good hacker—see, boring as can be.
“Oh they know. They’re desperate so they offered a write in interview. Adds something to my mystique, I guess. They asked about a typical day in my life, so I thought I’d make a mini-story out of it, of you and I, you know? They’d never be able to tell whether I was telling the truth or not. I might just put them off again.”
“Have they asked the question yet, Rin?” Luna asked, finally dragging herself off me, absently flicking her fingers to refill our teacups.
“Sorry?”
“The Soulmate one—as in who are they; is it singular or plural, and have you met her, him, or them yet?”
“Oh, that question. Yes, I’ve deflected and fobbed them off with a non-answer.” I looked up and stared at my friend’s back, taking in her tense shoulders and the scowl she directed at her innocent teacup.
Oh, right, damnit. Luna was a little bitter about the whole Soulmate/Soulmark issue.
She has four, three of which were very peculiar. The only one in English read, “What?” The two on her hips most closely resembled Norse runes and roughly translated (my specialty) also read, “What?” Which only left the one on her neck and down her arm, in binary (which was at least interesting) but that too also read, “What?” hence, Luna’s bitterness—in her mid-twenties, did anyone realize how many false positives she’d gotten?
(But this isn’t her story, its mine, and though she’s a big part of it, I refuse to become a secondary character in my own life!)
But it’s not like I could say anything on the Soulmate front—I’ve got five—count them, five!— and sometimes I have to wonder about the universe—I’m asexual, I figured I’d be lucky to have one romantic partner who wasn’t going to be phased by the fact that sex just wasn’t in my agenda. And the universe thinks that five people were going to be okay with that? I’m left wondering whether the universe fucked up or if I‘m just broken somehow.
But right now it wasn’t about me. I pushed up from my chair at the kitchen island and went over to my friend, laying gentle hands on her shoulders. With a soft squeeze, I murmured, “Don’t worry, we’ll find the assholes and then we’ll have a nice conversation about the definition of the word ‘originality’. And then we’ll kick their asses—or I’ll lecture and you kick, or some permutation thereof. Maybe both?”
“Both?”
“Both.”
“Both is good,” we finished together, myself hiding a smile in Luna’s long blonde hair and the woman in question chuckling weakly.
“That joke’s so old it creaks,” she muttered, leaning back against me.
“It made you laugh though, so I can’t complain.”
The two of us stayed in a companionable embrace for a few long minutes before Luna stepped away with a quiet sigh. I apparently make for a great cuddle partner, which was great for Luna, but I’m not a cuddler, more touch averse than not, so the two of us have learned over the years how to compromise. For me it’s a preference and for someone who matters to me, I’m not going to let my preference stand in the way of a friend’s need and Luna in turn, tried to keep them short unless otherwise asked for.
“Have you been to bed yet?”
I shrugged and grinned self-deprecatingly, “Not yet, eight communiques to translate came in last night and then I wanted to check over some NSA intelligence reports—you know how I get.”
Luna rolled her eyes, “No, we’ve been friends for how many years now, and roommates for how much of that time? Are you on call today too?”
“Yeah, and Thursdays are some of the worst, so going to bed now is pointless. Do you have class today?”
“Just my intermediate class at 11:30. I’ll be back by 3:15. Rehearsal’s cancelled tonight, something about repairs.”
I sent her a knowing look, “Avengers?”
Luna just shrugged. When the Avengers are doing the avenging, they’re pretty good about saving lives—buildings? Not so much.
“Don’t forget we’ve got reservations for that new Indian place at seven, double date with those two really cute food critics,” Luna reminded me, “And don’t do anything illegal while I’m gone!”
“You only mean don’t get caught!” I shot back, “Go teach budding young minds or whatever the hell it is you do!”
Luna merely laughed and flipped me the bird as she crossed the floor of our Manhattan penthouse to get ready for her day.
***
It was half past four when one of my alarms went off. Because of who Luna and I are, me being the hacker, I created a backdoor way into the servers of every government system. Mostly because I was keeping tabs on what was going on and making sure that the two of us, dragon and possible mutant, stayed off the radar. It was also how I kept people from connecting ‘E. Ueno’ the bestselling author and Rin Suero, the multilingual translator and blogger separate.
I had eight tablets floating in the air of the living room so I could swap back and forth between them (no, I haven’t figured out how to code my own hologram console, and I certainly wasn't buying StakTech or God forbid, government tech while I figured it out!), but the one that had been preset to S.H.I.E.L.D. was going off like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
S.H.I.E.L.D. for all that it’s reputation as one of the most secure government agencies in the world, or at least it was before the whole snafu with HYDRA, has holes in its security that you could drive a truck through—they still hadn’t figured out that I’m even in their systems, and believe me, I’ve checked.
Making a grab for the necessary tablet, I started scrolling. My preset screening parameters flagged an encrypted communique between one Agent Phil Coulson and Director Nicholas Fury. Long story very short, the Avengers were fighting some grandiose terrorist organization with tech that rivaled Starkech, and then they vanished.
Yep, that was the word alright: vanished. S.H.I.E.L.D. was scrambling to get a line on them, but they’ve got absolutely nothing. They can’t send teams of regular agents to their last known location—it’d be a suicide mission before wheels up—and all other heroes were unavailable. The Fantastic Four were in outer space somewhere and the X-Men went to ground and were currently unreachable.
S.H.I.E.L.D. was fucked, basically.
Ten minutes later, my shouted “Take that, bitch!” drew Luna out of her cave, looking at me like I was crazy. (She usually looks at me like that). I tipped my head over the back of the couch and smiled lopsided and upside down at her. “Hey, Lu-na,” I said, drawing out the syllables like a cheap movie effect, “Do you wanna be a vigilante?” Great now, I was trying to sing, I can’t sing for crap.
Luna looked at me and then at the glowing screen of my tablet and then back at me. “Ye-es?” she said, drawing out the word with a suspicious glance.
“Great,” I said as I flipped off the couch. I looked down at myself and huffed in irritation. “Be prepared to beam us out, Scotty in . . . seven minutes.
“Need pants.”