Next of Kin

Chapter Twenty-Four: 44%

Twenty-Four, 44%

Apparently I got a sympathy bump, for having got shot. There was a lag to it; people who watched it happen kind of turned on me. I got blamed for getting my ass kicked and shot with my own gun. But those that came in after were more forgiving. I hated that it was the first thing I noticed after the anesthesia wore off. Well, that and realizing I wasn't dead.

The next thing I realized was that I was back in Jenel's tent, lying in her cot. It was comfier than it looked- though it looked like a medieval trampoline. Jenel wasn't there. There was barely any light. I wondered how long I'd been out, and made the mistake of moving my chest.

The world turned fluorescent for an instant. “New mods are settling in,” I heard in my ear. “That was a new diagnostic, tries to make sensations less subjective and more obvious, so if you're having any kind of implant rejection it's easier for the techs to figure it out. You'll also taste purple, provided it's bright enough.”

“You're not here.”

“I don't spend all day in my tent. I'm picking up some food at the market.”

“Am I safe?”

“Your spores are active. You're the safest person in the dead zone. And I've got a couple of my goons nearby.”

One of the shotgunners from earlier poked his head inside the tent. He seemed less pleasant than last time- and on that occasion he pointed a gun at me. “You didn't tell them I called them goons, did you?” I asked.

“They heard,” she said. “Fresh fruit question. Orange or tangello? A warning, answering this wrong could very well end our burgeoning friendship.”

“We're friends?” I asked.

“Quit stalling for time.”

“I've never been able to bring myself to buy a tangelo. I just... couldn't get past the name, or that one time I did, I thought, can I really afford to buy a fruit I'll be afraid to try, only to throw it out? Come to think of it, that may also come from not understanding where it comes from. Is that a mix between tangerine and yellow?”

She laughed. “Okay, I didn't expect you to take it down the Island of Dr. Moreau crazy hole, but yeah. Oranges, all the way. I know tangelos aren't gene-mod, but I always kind of had trouble feeling like it was something that belonged in nature.”

“They aren't genemod?” I asked.

“it's a cross-breed, like a shorkie-”

“Or a bull-shit?”

“Exactly, smart ass. I don't have anything inherently against genemod; I mean, we wouldn't be able to feed everyone without it- a problem largely of our own making, given how poorly we've made birth control and legitimate sex ed available. But I give the genemod corporations the same side-eye I give the tobacco industry- clearly they've been manipulative about how they want their products shown to the public- though I don't think they're hiding a huge link to cancer or anything, just playing PR games.

“But the tangelo is a particularly strange creature. A tangerine is a dark mandarin orange- not actually a botanical classification. And a pomelo is a green grapefruit. The fusion of the two feels... unholy.”

“You've never eaten a tangelo either, have you?”

“Nope.” She sighed. “And now I feel bad, like I've been profiling my fruit. So we're both going to try a tangelo.”

“All right, but if the tangelo becomes sentient and later bursts out of my torso, I'm blaming you.”

“I think I can live with that. You know, unless both halves of the tangelo have a torso-bursting monster in them.”