Roadtrip

Anj stared at the cell phone in his hands.

It wasn't his - he'd had a cell phone, but it had gone missing - been stolen, probably - in the confusion. This was one he'd "borrowed" from Garrett, who - rather obviously - had no way to use it. It was a newer model than his had been, a year or two old with a bunch of fancy features that he didn't understand and had no intention of asking about, since he hadn't exactly asked permission in the first place. The "phone" part worked just fine, though. He'd already kept it open and untouched for long enough that the screen had gone dark to save on power.

Why was he doing this again? He'd already made the Obligatory Call on the evening of that day, the evening after what everyone was calling The Event. Everyone who still knew who their "real" family was had done something similar. Some hadn't called in person - they'd asked someone else to bear the news, or they'd sent a text message or an email. It was hard to do and sometimes painful, but there was that feeling of obligation - that feeling like the least they could do to their old parents, sisters, brothers, spouses, children, friends was to tell them, "I'm alive." Some families who hadn't gotten caught up in the weirdness wouldn't let it rest there. Most would, at least so far. It hadn't even been a week yet.

His Obligatory Call had worked out pretty typically, Anj had concluded. He'd called, getting his sister, and explained that it really was him, staying as level-voiced as he could, and he'd told her what had happened. Just the facts. She'd had some trouble believing that he was - or had been - her older sister. Anj had convinced her, mostly by talking about what was in the sketchbook he'd left back at her place. It had been uncomfortable on both sides.

So why was he even thinking about calling again? He couldn't seem to figure it out.

But it just wouldn't be right to leave it as it was. So what if most people had settled for the one call? He could understand why. So much was different, and the connections between family members were thinner and more tentative. He didn't want to leave it like that. It wasn't right.

I'm going to regret whichever choice I make, Anj told himself, hovering one finger over the first digit of the area code. The only question is, which would I regret more?

It was a very nice day. After that terrible storm yesterday, the air seemed fresh and cool; the sun shone as if defensive about the day before. Anj made it to the rendezvous point, not far out of the evacuated zone, without incident. He waited.

He could wait for hours, if need be, at rest, equally poised to move or hold position. But he wasn’t left standing for too long. From the curb where he stood, there was a very good view of the road. He saw Valerie’s little blue two-seater car and the baseball-shaped antenna-topper well before it got into the empty lot. Recognizing it caused a little lurch in his stomach, and Anj realized that he was feeling anxious.

It was stupid to feel nervous. More than once he’d been called to pitch in when a fight was threatening. Twice when creatures had escaped from the Twin Hills facility he had volunteered to roam in teams looking, even though he’d been aware that a manticore could take him down easily, forcepike or no. Training might account for that near-fearlessness, and maybe it was why he didn’t really have trouble talking to people, either.

Anj wasn’t one of Xanadu’s public relations people – he had the right look, yes, but he tended to garble longer statements, and now and again an Imperial streak showed up that made people nervous. There was also the fact that, as a Red Guard, he had a bit of an aversion to drawing attention to himself. Still, he’d said a few things on camera, both live and for recordings, and he had been delivering oral reports since evening of that day. In fact, he had only just walked out of one. He had no trouble with that sort of thing.

And this wasn’t someone he didn’t know, someone suspicious and more than a little afraid of him. Valerie was the one member of his family that he felt closest to. She’d always thought that he was a little weird, but they’d been sisters. And friends. She’d been a little uneasy over the phone, but she _had_ agreed to come, after all. Someone had to get him. He couldn’t have just chartered a bus to get all the way home. He hadn’t received permission until it was almost too late, until he had started considering ignoring officials and going anyway - but, as long as it had taken, Anj found himself wishing for more time. It was, by far, too late for second thoughts, he knew.

There had been no trouble coordinating this meet, right up until that last call that he’d picked up on the way here, when she estimated that it would take fifteen minutes to arrive. Waiting for her to get here had twisted his stomach a little. He’d felt both as if it was taking much, much longer than it should have, and as if the time was slipping past faster than thought. As she pulled in and parked he checked his new watch, a thick-banded sporty type, waterproof and digital, and easy to read since it didn’t have Arabic numerals. Despite himself, Anj smiled. “Right on time.”

The door closed and Valerie stepped slowly around to the curb, clearly studying him as if comparing his face to the one in the picture he’d emailed. Anj looked back in turn. She wore blue jeans and a pale blouse with a collar; her chin-length dark brown hair was wavy and tousled. Like the rest of the family, she was round-faced and big-headed, on the short side, and thickset, even stocky, rather than lean and wiry as Anj was. They looked nothing alike now, but when Anj had been Angela the resemblance had been almost uncanny. Her eyes flicked down to the Imperial emblem on his shoulder, then back up.

Oh no. I’d better be reading that the wrong way. He knew that expression, what it meant. It was in the way her mouth was just slightly open, the way she ran her tongue over her teeth. That speculation that he’d seen a time or two before. No, no, no, no!

Anj had met one or two women here and there who had hinted that they found him attractive, but he’d pretended to be blind to it. Neither of them had done more than hint; he’d found himself grateful for that stupid societal custom that preferred the man to make the first move. He wasn’t ready for all that yet. Emperor’s bones, he wasn’t entirely used to being the man yet!

“How was the drive?” Maybe if he was casual enough, banal even, she’d lose interest. He had to hope. Romance made him nervous, but he’d get to it – incest, on the other hand, was to be avoided at all costs. Hopefully he’d misread it. Maybe she was just nervous and afraid of him.

Valerie pursed her lips. “Four hours in traffic. I pity the guys who are out trying to fix damage to the roads – we got buzzed by a pair of flyers on the way. It was a mess.” She’d mentioned that during the last call.

Anj said pretty much the same thing that he’d said then. “Yeah. Not much we can do about those two, though. I mean, they’re inclined to cooperate, and generally limit themselves to ‘mischief.’ They don’t understand that they really aren’t harmless, but trying to contain them now, when there are bigger problems about…” He stopped himself and winced. Me and my loose tongue. I’m going to have to watch myself – family or not, there are things she’s just better off not knowing.

She stopped a little more than a meter away, shifting her posture a little as if uncertain. “I, um, got you that stuff you asked for – uh…” I can’t believe that I’m hoping that it’s just fear. Anj hated it when women were afraid of him out of uniform. It made him feel like some kind of monster.

“Excellent.” He came around to the back of her car and, glancing at her for permission, popped the trunk. “And hey, I told you, it’s Anj. Remember when we were kids, Val? You couldn’t pronounce ‘Angela’ or even ‘Angie’. It works.” Remind her that we grew up together and both had nicknames. That might work.

Unzipping one of the bags at random and seeing its contents, he saw something he’d tried to forget after middle school. Seized with inspiration, Anj palmed a particular item and turned towards his sister, stretching it out in front of him. One of the best things about having a ridiculously expressive face was the fact that he could now do “quizzical” quite well. “Honestly, Val. Do you really think this still fits?”

Valerie Kincaid looked from his face to the polka-dot dress with the pleated skirt and, just as Anj had hoped, burst out laughing.

“I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t get into this. And if I did, would it make me look fat? I have gained weight, you know.” Anj let his eyebrow drop and smiled as Valerie leaned against the car, shoulders shaking. Hopefully she’d decided to neither fear nor be attracted to him. It would make the trip a lot easier, let alone when they actually got there.

Giving the dress another look, he said, “I know I said everything, and you did ask if I meant ‘everything everything’. I didn't even know I still had this. Um. Well, next time someone gives an oral report they can take these to donate. There’s sort of a communal pile over there at Xanadu. Not a lot of people brought more than a couple changes of clothes, and stuff that doesn’t fit anymore goes to someone else. It works okay. That’s how I got this,” he said, glancing down at his button-up long sleeved business shirt and slightly oversized cargo pants, held up by a belt. Not entirely professional, and this outfit got hot quickly, but he was off duty now – and these clothes didn’t really restrict his movements much more than the robes. They were also nearly as good at concealing weaponry. She didn't need to know that. “I’m really lucky one of my new, uh, friends used to wear this exact shoe size.” He didn’t tell her how many times he’d washed the lining and scrubbed the things. She didn’t need to know that, either.

As he started refolding the dress into a mathematically perfect rectangle, Valerie recovered enough to ask, “Don’t clothes just change if they don’t fit? I heard something about that on the radio yesterday.”

“The ‘Clothing Curse’. It’s a little more complicated than that.” Finishing, Anj slipped the rectangle back into the bag it had come from, zipped it up, and started to rearrange the luggage so that it wouldn’t slide about. “Some people just can’t wear certain kinds of clothes, literally. Sometimes it changes just enough to fit, sometimes it gets pretty outrageous, sometimes it dissolves or falls off or whatever. And some people have it, others don’t.” The main pieces – duffel bags, a backpack, a few rolling luggages – were placed to his satisfaction. Collectively, they contained everything he owned, just about. Much of it was things he no longer saw a need for, but he’d wanted to decide for himself what was worth keeping.

The Red Guard started folding the loose towels and cloths he’d found in the trunk. Valerie kept her car clean, at least in comparison to the filthy horror he’d found in his car. Of course, he hadn’t seen it until after the windows had been broken to let that thing inside…

“Me, I’ve got a little bit,” he continued, a little rueful as he realized that he was explaining things again. He’d found recently that he really enjoyed doing it. Maybe he’d make a good teacher someday. The thought gave him a little, unexpected thrill. “Logos and insignia turn into the Imperial symbol, my unit patch, and my designation; that, or the text turns into Aurebesh. That's happened to a couple of band T-shirts I picked up. There are a couple of other really minor adjustments, but color and style stay the same. And if it doesn’t fit, it continues to not fit.”

Determined not to pay attention to lint or little bits of detritus, Anj closed the trunk firmly and turned again to his sister. “Okay. I’m satisfied. Pretty sure that there weren’t that many bags in the apartment, though. Wasn’t the Hello Kitty schoolbag yours?”

Valerie climbed into the driver’s seat. “It was. You can keep that one. The U of M messenger bag has my stuff, though. And Auntie’s old duffel. I’ll want those two back.”

Anj took shotgun and raised one eyebrow. Another good thing about his face: he could raise either eyebrow independently. And whistle. And do that curling tongue thing that Scott had shown him so many times. “Why did you do that? Couple of black trashbags would have worked fine, and it’s not like there’s any shortage.”

His sister sighed. “Actually, there is. You’d be surprised at what is or isn’t available recently. Some nut bought out or stole all the trashbags within a forty miles of where we - where I live, and it’s a small enough item that getting new ones isn’t a big priority, not when some places have trouble stocking the basics. I’ve been told to pick up some saran wrap and dish soap on the way. Dad thinks it could be years before the economy settles.” Glancing quickly into his eyes and away, Valerie clicked her seatbelt and adjusted the strap. “I don’t want to pretend that nothing’s happened, Ang- Anj.”

“That would be kind of hard to pull off,” Anj said wryly, following suit and then rolling his eyes. “Ugh. I just noticed that if my back is straight my hair brushes the ceiling. Val, your car is too small.”

“It is not. It’s a fuel-efficient economy.” She frowned, losing the teasing note in her voice. “And it’s not just that it’s hard to ignore. Look,” Valerie sighed.

“You know why we’re doing this. You know it’ll probably happen soon. And you know, you know very well, that this won’t be easy at all. She won’t recognize you, and if we can explain I don’t think she’ll take it too well. Maybe if this had happened four or five years ago, but not now.”

They pulled away, the tires of Valerie’s car shrilling on the asphalt as they always had when forced to turn at low speeds. Anj moistened his lips. “Yeah,” he said after a pause. “This is something I have to do. Uncomfortable as it is. If I don’t, I’ll regret it. I need to see her for this.” He felt he had to add, “And I do feel responsible, you know. If I hadn’t been here, at Xanadu, I mean, maybe Auntie wouldn’t have-“

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Valerie said sharply. “You had nothing to do with it. It’s hereditary.” Her voice became very soft, almost inaudible. “It’s possible that Dad and I have it too. We’re both a lot more active than she’s been for years. It could still happen.”

Anj had no idea how to respond to that last part. His genetics had changed completely, and he was no longer heir to any of the family health problems. He decided to act as if he hadn’t heard it, instead adjusting the seatbelt’s shoulder strap. Although he knew that she was right – well, this hadn’t happened until two days after Xanadu.

His sister’s eyes were fixed on the road. “Dad really doesn’t want anything to do with you. I talked to him on the phone about this. He didn’t try to stop me, but he is really uncomfortable about this.”

He sighed. This, he could answer.

“Dad – well, Dad was a hippie. Don’t look at me like that, Val. You’ve seen the photo album too. Some of that sticks around, long after all the trappings are gone.” Anj turned a wary eye on a damaged truck that was perilously close to tailgating.

“Bellbottoms, tie-dye shirt, long hair, and smoking something that I don’t think was a cigar. I guess he was. But I don’t really see why-“

“Take away all that sludge about drugs and free love, and counterculture is about resisting a culture or a government or whatever that’s become huge and corrupt, and tries to control the lives of the people.” Anj smiled crookedly. He’d had some time to think about this, and some people to talk to about it. “I’m Imperial, Val. I don’t know if you remember what I thought about politics before.”

“I seem to remember something about it making you sick,” Valerie said, a little slowly.

“Heh. I was pretty apathetic, sure. Now - oh, hey!” Half leaning over his sister, he pointed. “There’s a McDonalds up there that’s still open, no line!”

“What? Are you insane?” Still, she obliged, braking hard and turning in at a sharp enough angle to press their bodies into the seatbelts. The truck behind them beeped its horn in passing, easily heard over Valerie’s tires.

“No, seriously. There’s no line at the drive through window. Don’t worry, I picked up a little money. Actual dollars. I couldn’t stay at Base to eat this time, had to get by on some of my energy rations for lunch. That stuff is more dangerous than a blaster.” Catching her blank look, he added, “They just taste weird and have an awful texture. It’s like eating cardboard that was marinated in banana ketchup. I think you could build houses out of them; they keep forever.” The speaker besides the menu crackled and warbled a semicomprehensible question. It seemed to be half-overgrown with vines. Odd, since there were none on the building itself.

“Uh, I’ll have the Big Mac Combo, hold the tomato and the mustard, with a Doctor Pepper, ma’am,” he said in the requisite extra-articulate stage voice, accidentally slipping an honorific at the end of the request instead of a ‘please’. In a more normal tone, he said, “You want anything? I can cover.”

No Kincaid refused free food. It was practically the family motto. “Get me a fruit and yogurt parfait, please. Small.” Anj fished a few dollars out of a pants pocket and turned them over at the window. While they waited, Valerie frowned. “What did you mean earlier? About counterculture and politics?”

“Right. Well, I’m Imperial.” Anj laid his forearm out on the car’s retracted window, letting his hand hang on the outside. “That means a lot of things, but basically I’m very pro-government. I think that the state should have the power to step in and solve problems without a lot of bureaucratic nonsense, in essence. Power to the state, which is servant to the people, that kind of thing. I haven’t worked it all out yet, but I’m really big on strength, and order, and control.”

Valerie glanced over at him, then back at the steering wheel. “I see. Absolute power corrupts absolutely? Power falling into evil hands?”

Anj realized that he was jigging his leg in place like a restless schoolboy. He made himself stop – he could sit still for a while, surely. “I didn’t say it was perfect. Just that it appeals to me. Power doesn’t cause corruption by itself, it amplifies what’s already there. And ideally, there would be enough checks and balances to prevent major abuse of the system. I could go on… anyway, the point is that Dad, as a former hippie, is uneasy about The Man. And I am, in a sense, an agent of The Man. It’s not exactly a secret that I’m Imperial. He’ll come around. Eventually,” he added in an undertone.

“Doesn’t it bother you? He’s your father too,” Valerie asked quietly. The fast-food restaurant was not living up to the ‘fast’ part, but that wasn’t unusual, lately – the closer to Xanadu, the more rattled the employees were, he’d heard, and this particular establishment was barely two miles away. Outside of the official evacuated zone, yes, but most people and businesses here had decided on their own that they were too close.

“It does.” Anj admitted, drumming his fingertips against the car’s exterior. “It really does. But, you know what? I’m an adult, Val. I was an adult before this, and I’m a few years younger now, but I’m not a cadet. I can handle disapproval. And fear. He’ll get used to this. It’s not like it’s happened to him,” he said, a little bitterly. He regretted that bitterness, a little bit. These were hard times, and Auntie’s decline was more important.

His sister waited for a moment before, almost under her breath, asking, “What’s it like?” She was quiet enough that he could, possibly, have pretended not to hear. Fortunately that was when the harried employee finally produced the food, and between getting it and pulling back into traffic Anj had a moment to think and try and phrase a reply. Now that he had the chance, he realized that he hadn’t exactly articulated any of it before.

“Complicated,” he started a few moments later. Wind raked at his face, but he didn’t put the window back up. “It’s very complicated. I don’t know what’s due to losing an X chromosome and what’s Imperial. I have – I have all kinds of strong opinions now about politics, and the military, and all these other things, I eat a lot more, it’s now pretty much impossible for me to be a couch potato because it's hard for me to sit still.” He paused, trying to assemble his thoughts.

“It’s harder to refuse a challenge. If my superiors give me an order, I do it, and it pretty much goes from my ears to my muscles with barely any pause in my brain. I love to explain things, and you wouldn’t believe how good it feels to show someone how to do something. I get really paranoid at night, especially if there’s no one to guard my back when I sleep. I’m not alone in any of it, and for that I thank the E- I thank the Light Side.” Hesitating for a moment, Anj added, “And this is as trivial as it gets, but my hands and feet are huge. Seriously, look at these,” he said, holding up his left hand.

It was somewhat larger than his sister’s and had large knuckles and long fingers that were the same width at the base as they were at the tips. It was marked with calluses and tiny, long-healed scars, and was rough and a little hard to the touch. In all respects, however, it was a perfectly normal hand – entirely human and organic. Compared to what had happened to some people, it was essentially nothing, so he’d always felt it was in bad taste to complain. Unprofessional. Valerie barely gave it a glance before returning to the road.

Her mouth twitched. “Well, you know what they say about men with big feet.”

“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer,” Anj said immediately, frowning loftily. Valerie smirked, then laughed and visibly relaxed, and he realized that he hadn’t seen that lingering bit of uneasiness until it was gone.

“Yeah, that’s you, Anj. Remember? That’s exactly what you said after you got treated for that yea-“

“How is that forgetting the issue? That’s supposed to never come up again.” Anj lowered his voice. “You know, like how even when you were twelve you still-“

“Hey, hey! Let’s not get personal.” Even as her cheeks reddened, Valerie kept grinning like a loon. “I’m allowed to bring up embarrassing things in private. Little sister’s prerogative.”

“Hmph.” Secretly he was pleased at the ‘little sister’ part. So many other people from Xanadu, in and out of the 501st, had cut themselves off from their families, content with a single phone call at most. Not that he blamed them, and that seemed to be what had happened with Dad and his Auntie. They’d come around, or they wouldn’t. Valerie had identified herself as his sister. For now, that was enough.

A thought dawned on him. “I don’t think you can call yourself the little sib, Val. You’re older than I am now – I’m twenty-one.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Really? Huh. Okay. My prerogative’s the same. Hey, aren’t you going to eat that? I’m driving, but there’s nothing stopping you.” She made a vague head-jerk towards the brown paper to go bag, lying between them.

“I’ll wait,” he said serenely. It would be rude and insensitive to enjoy food in the presence of the various people who couldn’t. Everyone associated with the Outpost knew it and tried to be fairly discreet about eating and drinking. That didn’t mean anyone who dared couldn’t openly carry a meal past any one of them – yes, he could be written up for insubordination and two or more of them could probably have him killed with little effort, but they wouldn’t. Half the Outpost was pretty much competing to see how much they could press that unwritten rule.

Neither Valerie nor her brother spoke as they left city limits. There wasn’t much in the way of suburbia on this side of Orlando. The most direct route from here to the place Anj called Outpost was pretty much impassable, and it would be a long time before all the damage could be fixed, but there were plenty of other roads going in the right direction.

“I don’t actually feel all that different,” he said suddenly. Valerie glanced his way, but didn’t ask what he meant. He went on, “Seriously. I mean, okay, there are times when I wake up at night, and the ‘cold shower effect’ was completely unexpected. And yeah, if I look closely at my hands or – or anything else, it’s weird. I’m more visually oriented. But mostly I don’t even think much about it.”

“It’s like – well, you know, like when you graduate high school, or turn twenty, or lose your virginity. Or, I don’t know, you try eating pickled beets again, and they’re a lot better than you remember, or when you realize that you don’t mind doing your own laundry anymore. Sure it’s different, but you don’t feel different afterwards. Not really.”

Valerie tilted her head slightly, not turning from the road. “Did you really do everything in that order?”

“That falls under the category of ‘none of your business’, miss,” he said sternly, to cover the fact that he wasn’t at all sure. Sometimes, what he was now seemed a lot more real than Angela Kincaid. For a moment he wondered if he should have said, again, that he wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer.

“So you really don’t feel different?” Valerie glanced over at him for a second. She was good about watching the road, which he was grateful for. He’d caught rides with several people who weren’t nearly as careful.

“Not really, no. It’s not like I can just compare both ways, anyway.” He didn’t tell her that he could have had himself turned into a woman again, easily. He hadn’t. As far as he’d heard, none of the other former-women in the 501st had taken that option either. It helped that being a Red Guard was… well, to put it lightly, he’d never before had a job that was anything like this. He felt like what he did now had meaning. Not even those eight months at the art gallery could compare.

“It’s like, maybe… Well, you’re not really the same person you were five, ten years ago, right?” Anj was coming up with this as he went, and just hoping it made sense. “You’re very different, I mean you don’t have most of the same friends, you don’t do the same things, um – Well, you’re different. But you don’t feel different.” He didn’t know how to put it into words.

Valerie spoke slowly, staring through the windshield, through the road ahead. “Pretty much every cell you had seven years ago is dead and gone, replaced. That’s about how long it takes. Except for neurons and… and I forget what else, all human cells have a turnover, and get replaced at least once by the time seven years have passed. Not much is left, but you’re still the same.” She blinked. “That might not be the best analogy, actually.”

“Oh, no, I think you got it. The same. And different. It’s all one in the end.” A little irritated by all this philosophy, Anj hung his hand outside of the window again, raising it to feel the moving air push against his palm.

His eyes were watering a bit in the breeze. It was kind of nice, really. Hot out there, yes, and humid, but nice.

Anj saw Valerie’s hand slip off the wheel and into the paper bag. “Hey! That’s mine!” She popped a fry into her mouth and rubbed salty fingers together, smugly ignoring him.

“Thief,” he said. Undeterred, she took another one. “That’s my lunch.”

“You did say you were going to wait,” she reminded him. “And you ate something already.”

He rolled his eyes, saying, “Nothing that should be categorized as ‘food’. I’d give you a bite, but then you’d hate me forever. Or have me sued.” Or you wouldn’t hate it, it was on the tip of his tongue, but he shut his mouth. He was supposed to keep quiet about that. “Oh hey, you hooked up your iPod. Do you mind?”

Valerie, currently moving to pass the only other vehicle within a hundred meters, flicked her hand in a ‘go ahead’ gesture. It took Anj a moment to remember how this thing worked. Rather than deal with the bewildering number of half-remembered songs and artists listed in a language he had to slow down to read, he picked Shuffle.

Bonnie Tyler sang with husky intensity about her need for a hero, blaring out of the speakers. It was a bit louder than Anj liked it, and he turned it down. He’d loved that song at one point, but recently... well, heroes, particularly when they were larger-than-life or fresh from the fight, were better when they were either normal people called to do extraordinary things or completely imaginary.

The car passed by a bird-shaped singe mark on the asphalt, and as the stereo repeated the line about a fire in the blood Anj realized, with a guilty lurch, that he’d stopped paying attention to potential threats. It wasn’t because he’d been in conversation. He could talk and visually scan at the same time.

Not a lot of people sharing the road, and the greenery outside was a mix of tall grass, swampy water, and occasional patches of trees. He took in what he could. A couple of fliers were visible as specks in the sky, not close enough for him to determine if they were costumes or simple birds or aircraft. Possibly the most important thing was that he didn’t feel any hint of warning through his developing Force-sense. Still, no sense in lowering his guard.

Valerie glanced at him and away, and Anj realized that he was frowning. Scowling, even. That was the big disadvantage to having an expressive face. With a little effort, he smoothed it and cast about for something to say, turning his hand so that the wind pressed against it.

“You don’t need to stay at the Outpost tonight,” he said, hastily clarifying with, “Not if you don’t want to. There are a few pretty reasonable hotels nearby.” Anj tensed, and something tiny and compact struck the hand outside of the car, hard enough to sting.

He pulled his arm back in and looked at the very dead mosquito that had hit him. It was little more than a few hairy legs and a smear of brilliantly red blood on his skin. Insects usually had clear or yellowish blood, didn’t they? They didn’t have hemoglobin or red blood cells. Had he just accidentally killed someone from Xanadu?

Wait. No. It was a mosquito. Female mosquitoes drank red blood. That was what had happened here. He hadn’t felt that – that sort of gasp that Revan had showed him happening when something who thought and felt died. Still, he’d heard something back at Base about a secondary change that had passed through blood contact. He’d have to mention the possibility of mosquito-borne secondaries to a superior.

Belatedly, Anj realized that his sister had been talking, and he had to review his memory. Thankfully he’d been trained to have a few minutes of excellent recall. She had said, ruefully, that she didn’t have enough money, since she’d set aside most of it for the trip. And even though this car wasn’t a guzzler, gas prices had skyrocketed in the past three weeks.

“Val, I’ve got just under three hundred dollars left in my bank account,” he said. “I’d have more, but, well, I paid six month’s rent before coming here. And also – well, I’d also commissioned a new helmet. They aren’t refunding orders.”

She slowed the car momentarily. “It’s okay. You don’t have a job-“

“A paying job.” If there was anything he didn’t like about being in the 501st…

“-Right. I do. I can make more when I run out. There’s enough to go there and come back, and I don’t want to spend any more than I – than we need. Doesn’t matter whose money.” She’d always been prideful about that, he remembered.

Still… “I just don’t think you should sleep at Outpost, Val.” That hadn’t sounded as firm as he had intended. Ugh! He hadn’t taken care of the mosquito yet! Anj groped with his other hand for a tissue, wiped the thing off, folded it into a tiny square, and tucked it into a pocket, vowing to wash his hands several times. He could imagine the bug juices staining his skin, working into the tiny folds of his handprint.

“I thought you said it wasn’t dangerous,” she said, sounding a little irritated.

“Oh, it’s not! Outpost is very safe. And very boring, compared to Base, but there haven’t been more than a few heated arguments and one outright fight.” He winced, remembering that. Anj wasn’t worried about her safety. But he wasn’t authorized to tell anyone the real reason – the 501st was trying to keep it quiet, after all.

“Do you have a reason for me or not? You did say that you wanted me to see it.” She hesitated. “You don’t think people will start fighting again? Is that it?”

He was shaking his head before she even stopped speaking. “No, no. We got it taken care of. I seriously doubt anyone will so much as draw a weapon any time soon. If they do, I’ll keep you safe.” Saying that – he found himself looking his sister over, trying to gauge how fast she was, how strong. He would have to protect her, not just at Outpost, but on the way north, and while they were there, and on the way back. As a brother and a Red Guard, he could not allow her to come to any harm.

“We’re close, right?” Valerie broke him out of another little trance. He shook his head to clear it.

“Wha? Oh. Yeah. Just up here. You can see it – that gray one off by itself. With its own station and gate. Yes, here.”

In the guard box nearest the road, a man sat and watched cars pass. In the box with him was a stormtrooper, kitted up all in white armor with blue markings. They looked alert yet relaxed.

As Valerie’s car pulled both of them straightened up. Anj leaned over so his face was in sight, and rolled the window down so they would hear him.

“Thirtynine? My pass for today is ‘the bantha crows at midnight’.” He gave a casual salute, lightly thumping his left shoulder. “It’s just TR-1407 and guest. She’s logged and everything is filed,” he said. “Anything happen while I was gone?”

The stormtrooper returned the salute, thumping and then showing his open palm. The man with him, nondescript enough that he was only noteworthy in his lack of interesting features, scribbled or checked off something on a pad. “Barely anything worth reporting, Fourohseven. My lord started over with his wrist joint prototype, Seventyeight caught some local bug and is being quarantined, my lord Revan has started learning Japanese, there’s a nasty stink around the food prep unit, and we had another bunch of kids around the perimeter trying to see inside. You’d better head in. The suits don’t like people clogging the entry.”

“We’ll do our best not to bother the suits, then,” Anj said, noticing the plain man’s utter lack of reaction. The gate came up, and the stormtrooper waved them into the lot and turned back towards the street.

“Park anywhere except next to the one with the skulls,” Anj told Valerie. The parking lot had only a few vehicles. Not many of the people at Outpost still drove cars.

“Okay. Do you know him? Why’d he call you that?” Valerie put the car into park and took the keys from the ignition. Neither of them moved to open a door right away, so her iPod kept playing.

“I know him a little. Everyone knows everyone here, there aren’t a lot of us. That’s just a few numbers from my designation. TR-1407. We use those sometimes. There’s another one with numbers ending in oh seven, so I go by Fourohseven when I’m not on a first-name basis.” He shrugged.

“Right.” The current song ended, and something madly upbeat began. He almost missed her voice under it. “They’re not…”

“What’s that?” The car was not parked perfectly straight. None of the cars were aligned properly in their spaces, and there were multi-space gaps between some of them. This still bothered him, a little, but he’d never mentioned it. He’d never live it down.

“They’re not… bad people, right? Nothing bad is going to happen?” She turned serious eyes on him and tried to make light of this sudden fear, twisting her lips into a fake smile. “I’m not going to get shot at or turned into a turkey a week past Thanksgiving, am I?”

If he pressed now, he could convince her to stay in a motel. But then, as she’d said before, that would be wasted money. And they would be apart, with no one to watch her.

“No. These are good people here. I’d trust them with my life. I’d trust them with yours. Nothing will happen. But if it does –“ Anj unclipped his seat belt to swivel in the seat, and Valerie twisted around so that they faced one another –“If it does, here or elsewhere, I will protect you. Believe me. You’ll be safe.” He stared intently into her eyes, and she did not look away. “No matter what. My life for yours. My people for you. As I guard the Empire, I will guard you.” He reached out, palms up, and as she extended her own arms he gripped them just above the elbow, as she clasped his forearms. “I will guard you until the term has ended.”

He let go, and both of them pulled back and settled in their seats. Anj put his face in his hand as he realized that he’d just pledged allegiance to his sister, as if she were a planetary governor or official that he’d been assigned to protect. Damn! He could have, would have protected her without that, particularly if he’d managed to start thinking of her as an Imperial citizen. Well, he hadn’t pledged service or obedience, and he’d mentioned a term. Okay. Okay. This wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

She unbuckled her seatbelt, patted vaguely at her hair, and opened the door, only glancing at him once. He nabbed the bag of food, got out, and they closed the doors. There was no danger here. Tomorrow, he would start for real, when they left the safety of Outpost to head north. He could relax for now.

“What was that about?”

“I’m going to protect you. It’s a Red Guard thing.” He took it as a good thing that she shrugged, then, and apparently put it out of her mind.

Had he forgotten – no, of course not, it was right in the pocket where he’d left it, wrapped neatly in gauze. For some reason, whenever he was coming back with orders, he tended to have a moment of panic where he thought he’d forgotten them. Letting the searching hand fall back by his side, he started towards the door, sister in tow.

Valerie nudged him with her elbow and muttered, “Who’s that?” She waved a hand in a vague pointing gesture. Fortunately, there was only one person she could have meant.

Anj could look without making it obvious. ‘That’ was a catlike furry woman with a forked tail, huge pointed ears with stiff tufts of hair under them, and lavender fur that had the shine of velvet. She also had a small red stone set into her forehead, liquid black eyes with white pupils or irises, and was wearing overalls and a too-large wrinkled T-shirt that nonetheless clung to her curves like it was sopping wet. Currently she was on a cigarette break, puffing smoke slowly through a petite mouth.

“Her name is Isaac, Isaac Williams. She’s from Xanadu.” Valerie shot him a ‘well, duh’ look, and he went on, “A Pokemon furry, I think… an Espry? Espryeon? Something like that.” One of Isaac’s ears twitched. She might well be able to overhear them. It probably wasn’t something to worry about.

His sister took her lower lip between her teeth and just gripped it for a moment. “Espeon. Those were the second generation of Pokemon games. Espeon is one of the evolutions of Eevee.” She looked back at his face and raised her eyebrows. “Hey, don’t look surprised. I was crazy about those games. Espeon… that’s a psychic cat. But I’m pretty sure that they didn’t look like that."

Still not openly staring, Anj glanced over Isaac’s narrow waist, flaring hips, long neck, and four breasts, each perfectly, unnaturally round. Having gone back to Xanadu several times, he’d seen enough not to stare, but he could see why Valerie might. “Furry, remember? There are some Pokemon furries.” He went on, keeping his voice casual.

”Outpost was a warehouse complex or something before they handed it over to us. We’ve got pest problems. Lots of little animals have gone and crawled into the walls to die, and the roaches were pretty bad. And rats. Don’t get me started on the rats. It was pretty much unlivable.” This was no exaggeration. Naturally, SL-1984 had not moved in and started enacting plans until after the cleanup, avoiding that mess. “Isaac was an exterminator. Still is, really. We’re lucky we found her. Isaac’s been here for over two weeks, and it’s just about civilized now.”

Across the lot, Isaac’s split tail swished. Anj considered mentioning that she had finished the job over a week ago, with the assistance of most of the troopers. Oh, she still sprayed pesticides now and again, and was sometimes seen putting out traps, but everyone knew she was done. Now she made herself useful in a number of other ways, mostly doing the same work troopers assigned to Outpost did – KP, cleaning, laundry, moving heavy items, fetching things for superiors. Off duty, she tended to stay close to them. Isaac hadn’t quite gotten to the point where she would sleep in the barracks and complain with them about this or that, but it was only a matter of time.

Anj kept silent. If he explained all that, Valerie would probably ask why Isaac was staying on, and he didn’t want to have to lie.

“Soo,” she started after a bit, “’Isaac’, huh? I take it she used to be a guy?” At his nod, she raised her eyebrows. “Don’t people usually change their names when they…?”

“Hmm?”

She scowled. “Don’t play innocent. When they – when you - get genderfucked, don’t you change your name?”

“Genderfucked? Oh – I can say that again?” he asked, distracted. “Frack? Ah. Guess not. Genderfucked. Genderfuck. Why does it work like that? It’s clearly the same word, just with another tacked on the front.” Anj clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth, considering.

“’Genderfucked.’ That’s not a term I’ve heard before. Very colorful. More evocative than ‘genderbent’, but I doubt it’ll get said as much on the air. I’m going to have to bring it up next time I’m at Base.”

Valerie was too old to stamp her foot and glare, and only a little too old to roll her eyes and sigh. Instead, with exaggerated patience, she said, ”If you don’t want to answer the question, just tell me.”

“Sorry. It’s really a matter of preference, I think.” He shrugged. “I was calling myself Anj and TR-1407 long before this. ‘Anj’ is just ‘Ang’ with the spelling changed. It seemed to fit. I hear that Isaac’s other name was Sunmoth or something, and she might have decided that was too silly.”

They’d been dawdling outside for too long. “Let’s go in. I told you that I’d show you around.”

Inside there was just the faintest smell of armor wax, mostly overwhelmed by a funk from the official kitchen. Someone had decided to try and make sauerkraut, apparently, and although a number of standing fans had been set up, the smell was very present. This was the problem with having no set cook. By now, thankfully, only those who could make something edible in decent quantity were assigned to make things.

Meeting them at the door was a sandtrooper with his helmet off. It was TD-0583. They’d made pancakes together that one time, and had been on the same grocery run twice now. Good guy, personable, sharp, could run with another trooper held across his shoulders without slowing. Anj exchanged a salute with him, then reached into a pocket and pulled out the gauze-wrapped datacard they’d given him back at Base.

More for his sister’s sake than anything else, he told 583, “New orders. Same as the old orders." Sending messengers to give orders and reports was completely unnecessary, what with comm frequencies and email. But who was he to question his superiors? "They’re rotating a patrol’s worth of newly-revived people in to recover. And they’re giving us TK-4321.”

“Not him,” the other man said, sighing as he accepted the card. “I volunteered for this post so I wouldn’t have to sleep down the hall from him any more. He sings in the shower, you know. Let me guess, Ken still won’t wear a helmet and finally got hit? He’s damn agile, but you can only dodge for so long.”

“Not that I’ve heard. Scuttlebutt goes that he’s irritated the Mandalorians. You know how touchy they are. If they secede, they take half the clone troopers with them. Officially, 4321’s transferring so that he can, and I quote, ‘benefit from the media presence’. Yeah. I think they’re hoping he gets taken in by the media or the ‘normal’ alts.”

Sighing, the sandtrooper brushed invisible grit from the dusty black pauldron on his shoulder; it and the generally worn state of his armor were all that distinguished him from standard stormtroopers. “I don’t think the alts will want him. They don’t get along all that well. Back at Base, my patrol ran into three of them fighting. We had to stun ‘em to break it up.” He met Valerie’s gaze and smiled. “Whether or not you like Elvis, more than one of him is a nuisance.”

“I’m not the biggest fan, but he’s okay,” she said, eyes a little glazed over. “I’m not sure what you mean, though.”

“Elvis-alts are the biggest prima donnas I have ever seen,” 538 told her. “Save one some time, you’ll see. And of course there are a bunch at Xanadu, and I swear half of them are Strangers, so we’ve got all these copies of the King walking around not sure what year it is. The classics don’t sleep around much and know when to lie low, at least. It’s the others that get into the peccadilloes.” He rolled his eyes.

“’Alts’ are ‘alternates’, alternate versions of the same character,” Anj told her. “Like classic Elvis, in ‘raw fifties’ and ‘kitschy seventies’ flavors; sex god Elvis, don’t laugh, he exists; furry Elvis; woman Elvis; drag queen Elvis, which is completely different; alien Elvis; child Elvis; and of course there’s our TK-4321, the Elvis trooper. I think you took a picture with him one year, when you came with me to Dragon Con.”

She blinked. “He had the cape, right? And the jewels. He was such a ham. Good God, that’s insane.”

“He’ll be here tomorrow, after we leave. You get to miss him.”

“Lucky girl.” The sandtrooper frowned, as if really seeing her for the first time. “I haven’t seen you around before. You new?”

“This is my sister, Valerie Kincaid.” This was going to be predictable, but it would mean she’d forget about that “new” comment. He hoped. “I’ve mentioned her before. She’s stopping over for the night and taking me with her tomorrow.”

“Oh, you’ll tell me your sister’s name but not yours, huh?” 538 jibed, tilting his head a little, the better to see her. “Your brother’s a cad.” Smiling, already raising his arms defensively, he added, “He never said that you’re pretty. Ow! I’m just being friendly!”

Anj folded his arms across his chest and couldn’t quite keep from grinning. He’d always wanted to do something like that. “You want my name? It’s Anj. Same last name.”

“Danny, Danny Watanabe. Today’s official midday-block door guardian. What can I do you for?”

“He said he’d show me around,” Valerie said. “But I think he should eat first. The food’ll get cold. Or warm. I've got something in that bag too."

"Good idea." Anj gave her the bag. "Stay with Danny for a bit, okay? I need to head to the 'fresher and get this gunk off my hands."

[Transition? Mention daily datacard.]

Valerie wanted to meet the famous Garrett, of course. He was something of a celebrity now, or, well, an attraction. Footage and stills from the chase had circulated everywhere in the past month, and tended to pop up in any article about Xanadu. A short piece about his current state of affairs had already run on a major news network, and although he’d denied all of them so far, there were rumors about everything from a reality TV show to a documentary.

The walker was kept in the warehouse itself. Everything had been cleared out to make enough space for him to turn around, though he hadn't done so all that often. So far he had gone outside only four times, always with twenty minutes of troopers working to get things disconnected and open the door and make sure that the yard was clear before he took a step. Garrett really didn’t move much – and now that the fuel crisis was over, this was probably because he didn’t like all the attention his outings got from the media.

Anj lead his sister into that space. The high ceiling, corrugated metal with some rafters holding it up, was hung with cobwebs, a sight which always made him curl his lip a little. Similarly, although the small, high-set windows had been wiped, the shafts of light that they let though danced with dust motes. And the floor! It might have been cement originally, but after a few days a truckload of gravel had been put in and spread around. Garrett’s ‘room’ was impossible to clean or keep clean, at least by Anj’s standards. No one else had said a word, though, so he tried not to complain.

They crunched onto the gravel that had spilled under the door and out of the room, and Anj watched her neck craning upwards, heard her breath catch in her throat.

“Suddenly I don’t think this was a good idea,” Valerie said, barely loud enough to be heard. He felt a powerful, heady rush of protectiveness for her, and found himself glancing around, making sure there were no unpleasant surprises.

“It’s all right,” he told her quietly, and surprised himself by reaching over and putting a bracing hand on her shoulder. “I’ll keep you safe.” He was definitely bodyguarding her. Well, if nothing else, it would be nice to have someone to protect.

“Right…” They walked in. Garrett was waiting, politely pretending that he hadn’t seen them in the entryway.

The walker didn’t look quite the same as he had in those infamous videos. The black score marks and occasional dents were gone, testament to the cleaning, patching, and replacement skills of the crew. Dangling all the way to the ground were massive pipes to his fuel tank and cables and one rope ladder leading to a hatch, seeming miniscule against his bulk. Both forelegs had a complex series of translucent-to-amber cables wrapped around the “ankle” joint. Over the weeks the crew, being bored, inventive, and athletic, had polished his entire external surface until it gleamed dully.

“Hi Valerie. I’m Garrett. Garret Thompson.” The walker’s neck wasn’t flexible enough to look directly down at them, instead tilting in their general direction. Garrett’s voice, oddly soft and almost tentative, came from the car-sized speaker ensemble that squatted besides him. He had finally conquered the monotone, the static and feedback, the stutter, and the synthetic buzz, but hadn’t yet mastered the reverb or the flanging. It would probably be a year or more before he could control the weird subharmonics.

That speaker ensemble had a set of thick braided cords that wound all the way up to one of Garrett’s hatches. Having no speakers or microphones built into his exterior, the walker had had a lot of trouble with communication. Essentially, he could neither hear nor speak to anyone who was neither inside of him nor in possession of a comlink on the right Imperial frequency.

The speaker ensemble had been built to get around all that. Anj hadn’t been part of the drawing board or the build team, so he didn’t know how any of that worked or why it had to be so huge, but Garrett could speak and hear out of the thing, and listen to radio stations, and apparently call people too. The more tech-savvy staff here at Outpost worked on it constantly. SL-1984 had been in on it at first, until he’d started on that Deka project.

Anj nudged his sister gently. “You’re staring,” he told her, not unkindly. Many people gawked like this, the first time they met Garrett. No matter how prepared anyone thought they were, that was how it went. He always felt a little guilty when he saw this – disbelief was nothing compared to his reaction. Imperial conditioning ran deep. That was not an excuse.

Valerie closed her mouth and visibly swallowed. “Oh. Sorry. …Hi,” she said in a very small voice. “Anj… told me about you.”

“Only good things, I hope.” There was an uncertain pause. Even though Anj was one of the ones who had elected to stay at Outpost since the beginning rather than rotating in and out, they hadn’t had a lot of contact. Garrett did not know how very close Anj had come to lobotomizing or killing him back there, when the Red Guard had finally realized that this was more than a runaway walker. Few people had any idea what had happened at that moment in the AT-AT’s cockpit, and Anj preferred to keep it that way.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” Garrett’s speaker said. “I’ve uh – I’ve been working on a sort of a handshake. Would you like to help me test it?”

Anj was gratified to see that the first thing Valerie did was glance at him. He shrugged, and nodded. This was something he had heard about since the ankle modification, but he’d never seen it himself. Probably because he’d been avoiding Garrett, not that that was hard.

“Sure,” Valerie said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just grab the closest toe flap when I’m ready, and hold on.” Garrett’s balance visibly shifted, and his near foreleg swung slowly forwards with a droning hum and a lot of clanking. It bent down at the knee, whirring, and then with a high whine the translucent cables encasing the ankle joint flexed, bending it forward so that the footpad was held level, about a meter and a half above the ground, toeflaps reaching as “down” as they could go.

“Okay. You can come over here now.” Odd, that a voice from someone with no lungs, who could presumably control how he sounded, seemed so breathless. Anj found himself frowning.

“Wait,” he said, putting one hand out to stop his sister. The Red Guard tilted his head back and looked squarely up at Garrett’s fuel tank. “I don’t want her getting hurt, do you understand?”

“I’ve done this before,” the walker protested, with much less certainty than Anj would have liked. “I have it down. Look, it’s just –” The toeflaps on the extended footpad all quivered, then swung up and down, like doors half-opening with a sound of metal sliding on metal. “This is as fast as they go, and as far as they go. I’ve tried it with all of my crew. Nothing is going to happen.”

Anj stared upwards for a long moment, and relented. “Fine. But if you do make a mistake-“

“I’ll regret it, I know.” The weary, slightly patronizing tone in Garrett’s voice irritated Anj; he had to fight to keep his face blank, and couldn’t quite stop a twitch. The walker wasn’t taking this seriously.

Valerie, a little more nervous now, stage-coughed into her hand. “Please don’t fight.” She glanced at Anj. “I have to take him back home, you know, and I didn’t bring a bodybag.”

“I wouldn’t have killed him. Just mooshed him a little,” said Garret, as Anj protested. Still, this reminded him. He shouldn’t try to provoke fights at all, particularly with his target here.

With bad grace, he gave the go-ahead, and Valerie stepped up.

“Just hook your arms over the closest toe flap – yeah, like that. Okay. Hold on.”

Very gradually, in a series of shivering twitches, the flaps rose and lowered, rose and lowered. For Garrett, this was a feat of dexterity as delicate as a brain surgeon with a scalpel, or one of those novelty artists painting names on grains of rice, or maybe SL-1984 adjusting a neural link with his newer hand. Anj had talked to some of the crew who’d endured the walker’s early attempts, and clearly he’d made progress since then.

Valerie’s feet left the ground, just barely, on each upswing. After a few of these, she waited for a downswing and let go and stepped back, almost stumbling. Anj took her by the arm and steadied her.

“You’re all right?” She ran her hand through her hair and flashed a smile at him, then looked back up.

“I’m fine. So that’s a handshake, huh?”

“As close as I’m going to come until Eighty-Four’s happy with his stuff, yeah. My crew are all troopers, and Steph’s even smaller than a human. Other than the press and a couple of other guys, I don’t see a lot of other people. They don’t really want to talk to me. Thanks.” Apparently unaware that he’d basically confessed to loneliness, Garrett lowered his footpad back to the gravel, which crunched.

“No problem. Your crew – that’s who’s using the ladder, right?”

“Yeah. They’re up there now, but they’re not spying or anything, promise. No one's even awake in my cockpit just now."

"Awake?"

"Steph says my command chair is the most comfortable spot. He's got different sleeping patterns."

Bored, Anj fidgeted, then did a bunch of toe-rising exercises while they talked about this and that. Residual guilt aside, he didn't find Garrett very interesting. It might have been different if he was on the walker's crew, which he was qualified for, certainly. Or it might not have.