Renevere Mars: Part Two

Episode 13: Special Permission

Ren sat at the bottom of the shower. The water was starting to get closer to room temperature, the cold tile against her legs making her shiver despite the thick curtain of steam that filled the shower.

A loud banging on her bathroom door jolted her back to present consciousness. Where she had been drifting before, she couldn't be sure, but now she was starkly aware of her own vulnerable, naked state and the fact that there was someone in her apartment. She slipped past the shower curtain without making a sound or shutting off the water, pulling her bathrobe over her soaking skin with hast. If the person on the other side of the door was an enemy they wouldn't have knocked, right? But one can never be too carful, so she opened her mirror cabinet and withdrew the knife that was resting there on the self alongside her toothbrush. She whirled on her heels to face the door as she heard a voice, muffled through the door, become louder as the door opened.

"...-coming in," said the voice, and then the owner came into view.

Duren took her in, one hand holding her robe shut, the other clutching a knife, at the ready to cut him, hair stuck to her neck and puddle of water collecting beneath her dripping wet form.

"Well," he said, "that's more like it."

Ren let out a sigh of held breath and dropped her arm in exasperation. "Stop breaking into my house!" She returned the knife to her bathroom cupboard and more tightly secured her robe.

"Well you weren't answering the door," he said, as though breaking into her house was a reasonable response.

"Because I was in the shower!"

He lifted his wrist and pulled back his sleeve to reveal his watch. "For 40 minutes?"

Ren grimaced, shame making its way into the creases of her eyes.

"Warriors don't sulk," he said emotionlessly.

"I'm not sulking, I was taking a damn shower—"

"Well get dressed, the Rexus has called for you."

"The Rexus?" she couldn't help the squeak in her voice. "Why?"

"Now. Get dressed."

She huffed at him as she marched passed and moved to her dresser beside her bed in the one room that made up her studio apartment.

"She wants to know about your new cha," he said as Ren pulled out a fresh pair of clothes.

"How does she know about that?" Ren asked as she walked past him to return to the bathroom. She shut the door but left it open a crack so she could hear his response as she changed.

"I told her, of course."

"You went to her without me?"

"You were sulking—"

"Was not—"

"—and it needs to be documented and blacklisted."

"You blacklisted my cha?" she said incredulously through the crack in the door.

"I didn't, no, but I did inform Keylopé of what you told me."

"Okay, but is that really necessary? It's not like it's that—"

"It is necessary, and it is that powerful. Don't underestimate yourself. You have your weaknesses, but this is an incredible strength. Because no one is impervious to it, Ren. No one. And as far as we know, it can't be blocked or countered."

She knew by now that some cha's, such as Duren's Black Poison Cha, were known by upper level officials, written down in some forbidden book, and kept secret to the rest of the world. These chas were made classified both because of their rarity, and their strategical merit to Ossilith. A secret weapon is only such if no one knows about it. But she had never in her wildest dreams imagined that her own cha would be on that list alongside the likes of Duren.