SAM

  “Fuck!” Cora cursed.

  I dropped my fork.

  The person across the dinner table from us shouldn’t exist.

  “How?” I demanded.

  Jax didn’t have to tell me, but ee knew my thoughts. Knew I’d been to Shurwinn and read all about the Sloan family in the books there—correction, not all about them. A tiny dose about the Sloan family, because apparently, there were progeny I’d read nothing about.

  Jax looked at me, making a “keep going” gesture. I talked out loud for Cora’s benefit since not all of us were telepathic.

  “Borden and Annika had twins: Ronnie and Shah. Were there other kids that got left outta the stories? A love child?” I wondered.

  Jax shook his head, grinning.

  “So either Shah had kids or. . .”

  “No,” Cora shook her head. “Not Shah. Oh my god!” she grabbed my arm. “It’s just like we were talking about in the Sanctuary.”

  Jax flinched at that, but Cora paid no mind. “Cyn! Fucking hells! It’s all about Cyn, isn’t it?!”

  Jax pinched his lips, eyes victorious.

  I nodded to Cora, “So, Ronnie and Cyn had kids, and we’re at dinner with one of their offspring?”

  Jax bowed, flourishing one hand.

  “Are you going to tell us?” I asked.

  Jax quirked es mouth as though considering my question, but the story spilled out like ee’d been dying to tell it for ages.

  “Their daughter, Brill, is my grandmother. Now holding court, as you’ve seen. Then my mother, Jenja. And now me, a precious biological male who needs to carry on the family line,” ee finished, grinning at Ree.

  She picked up the story, “Thankfully, my family tends to be quite fecund, and I’ll be happy having three or four kids. So that’s in the works, and the Sloans have no reason to fear their empire will fall. Jax may not be driven like es entrepreneurial mother and grandmother, but children? That’s something we can do, and I happen to be the perfect fit for their business.”

  Cora and I looked at them, dumbfounded.

  “Breeding? Like cattle? That's what you do here?” I grimaced.

  The pair laughed in hysterics.

  Right. We'd stumbled into one of their private jokes again.

  Cora rolled her eyes at me, then muttered, “Don’t miss the detail, babe.” She started typing into her pad.

  Jax waved her off and answered the question for her.

  “StarOne Enterprises. My family builds starliners and sells them all over the 9 Galaxies. Fleets of them for a hundred years now.”

  Oh boy. Top of the tech food chain.

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  Starliners.

  Ree’s face softened, “I’m sorry, Sam. If your parents'd been on one of our starliners, they might still be alive. I can’t promise that they’re 100% unhackable. But I’ve tried my whole life, and I’ve never breached a single StarOne ship. They’re solid as you can get. If I have legal access to it, meaning, programmed permission, I can operate one."

  She wagged her head, "But I can’t hack it, and I try. All the time. It’s really my only job at StarOne. Hack their systems day and night, trying to fiddle with the fleet. For the life of me, I cannot do it.”

  “Great-grandma Cyn was something else,” Jax explained. “A telepath like no other, and an augmented hacker. A marvel, and she didn’t stop there. I dunno if she and Ronnie foresaw the Resistor exactly, but somehow they anticipated it and tried to prevent it."

  "I have no doubt that StarOne has been a thorn in the Tech Guild’s side because of the unhackable systems. My family is rather proud of our cyber empire, and we made it to the top of the Ministry in Andromeda. You can put together the impact of that truth on your own,” Jax finished.

  “It really is safe here,” Cora concluded.

  “Is it?” I whispered. “Or is this system a bigger target now?”

  Ree flexed a metal hand, “I know why you’re worried, Sam. And it makes sense. You see a city like Uru—all these people doing weird shit in the streets—and find out you’re at dinner with the family who started the whole place. Seems like we’re begging for someone to drop a bomb on us, but that’s not gonna happen. They don’t do things obvious like that, at least from what I can tell.”

  “They?” Cora asked, sipping her drink.

  “Not one person, of course. It’s never that simple when it’s the 9 Galaxies involved. No, we can’t go small here. We gotta do it the hard way. Corporate empires all competing with each other. Backstabbing. A tangled mess of tenuous alliances—all wanting the same thing: Power.”

  Ree spread her metal hands, gesturing palms up, “I’ve already told you I don’t know who is who on stream, and we all like it that way. Out here in the open, this is just people living life—ants to the Ministry. Our tiny lives don’t matter, really. Test it: go post a picture of a kid floating leaves in the air on stream. People will think it’s fantasy. The Ministry doesn’t care about trifles like that. ”

  “What do they care about? I’d think a corporation making unhackable starliners would be very interesting to them,” Cora said with an edge.

  Ree nodded, “Of course, but that’s business. Competition. And Brill’s at the top of the food chain in Andromeda, so she’s off limits. No one can climb higher. The people on her tier... what do they care about? Maintaining power. And Brill’s position is solid. Unless someone wants to move to Andromeda and leave their own Galactic Ministry behind for hers.”

  Ree shook her head. “Not gonna happen. So, it’s safe... until you do something to challenge their power in their territory.”

  She looked me squarely in the eyes, meaning obvious.

  Like the augments on Black Moon Lilith. And my parents.

  Cora switched gears. “Is your grandmother a telepath?” she asked Jax.

  Jax’s grin was a feral thing to behold.

  “Shit. The Ministry has no idea what’s in its midst, do they?” I smiled, seeing how we might have a leg up.

  The two faces across the table beamed at me and Cora like we finally, finally knew the players on the board. Cora and I grinned at each other, then she glanced down at Jax’s discarded napkin.

  “You gonna waste all that salt?” she accused, and Jax’s eyes rolled in response.

  Then thin lines of dark grey, olive green, and pale pink stone streamed over the edge of the table and dug through the folds of the napkin. The mass roiled, and something sleek slithered out.

  One line with a triangular head. Scaly body swirled with grey-green pink. Eyes of white with diamond-shaped green pupils. I reached out my left hand and stroked the prettiest viper I’d ever seen with one finger, then picked it up, holding it to Cora.

  “You wanted to be impressed, love?” I asked lightly.

  “I showed you mine, you gonna show yours?” Jax asked, nodding to my shoulder bag.

  No way, Jax couldn’t mean for me to just hand over my dream journal.

  Jax responded with an eye roll. “You know how high the telepaths and augments have climbed, but we’re missing a crucial ally.” Jax pointed between Cora and me. “You’re the dreamers, so don’t you think it’s time you took a turn? Hmmm?”

  Cora sat back as my face contorted. “What exactly can we do? I mean stories and song lyrics are great and all. . .”

  “Someone is destroying creatives,” Ree reminded us. “And as we’ve discussed, they’ll stop at nothing to put the augments in their places: under the boot of the technocrats. My mate just made you a totem. What does it tell you?”

  Cora held the snake before us as I whispered, “Stomp too close, and we will strike your heel.”

  Jax pointed to us again, “You two are the dreamers, so isn’t it time for you to decide what comes next?”

  Cora nodded and put the stone snake in the palm of my hand. “Someone’s trying to kill the hopes of everyone in the 9 Galaxies, babe. What’re we gonna do about it?”

  I looked into her brown eyes, wishing on every star in every night sky when I said, “Let’s give the Known Cosmos their dreams back, Dream Walker.”

  She smiled.