LAtenCy 01001

"You taste like the finest strawberry wine," Kalo says with breathy satisfaction, peppering Risha's outstretched leg with soft kisses.

"That's exactly what a girl wants to hear after she gives herself - how much she tastes like your other lover." Risha's smile is only half-joking. She takes her leg away and beckons Kalo closer to her lips. "I could," she hesitates, "we can do this more often, you know?" Risha says, bashfully, twirling her index finger in Kalo's beaded necklace.

Kalo takes his fingertip and traces a bead of sweat from Risha's neck to her chest. "It is very dangerous in this Timeline, darling. Besides," Kalo presses his lips against the back of her hand,

"Nothing is more beloved than that which is rarely indulged." Risha's smile bends slowly, "or more neglected, Kalo." He cuddles her into laughter. Kalo smiles and blinks softly as he looks her over, until the pure image of her beauty is perfectly mirrored in his mind. The colorful haze of the room sets an aura around her body. Her smooth skin, holy.

Risha's eyes stare back and forth between his with a reluctant passion; an empty glass. Once half-full but consumed far too quickly. Miles until the next drop. "If you could change anything - anything in this world - what would it be?"

Kalo's lazy brown eye's look over his hovering thoughts. He plucks one with a cheap grin. "Your last name," He says, the clenched fist of satisfaction is practically written on his face. "Oh, so smooth you are." Risha smiles but moves along quickly. "Seriously, Kalo - tell me."

Kalo breathes deep and waits in the silence. In Risha's eyes, staring back. He doesn't want to answer. Not because he doesn't have one. He simply doesn't want to remind himself of it. Forbidden. No other word invokes the mind's walls so vividly.

Risha worked in a mining colony. With the "shells," as they were called. A way of saying slave but with less purpose. Kalo worked for Strata Corps. Interplanetary tactical teams whose mission was to assist and research low-tier planets scheduled for full resets. Any member of an outpost working for or alongside the Corps. was strictly prohibited from mingling with a shell. Risha and Kalo fell for one another. Then they became fugitives.

"I would change the way we view life, at a fundamental level. We of the Corps. go forth in the name of science but we are not innocent. We build in our image but that image is not sacred. It is judgemental. We subjugate and call it intervention. Science is the disembodied soul of the great beast of the future. Give it consciousness and a body, and it will play God the first chance it gets."

Risha stares at Kalo with sincerity but sternly. "What if one day, one timeline, we're unable to find each other?"

"The continuum of space and time itself will conspire to cross our paths," Kalo replies.

"I would find your star in any sky," Risha whispers. Kalo: "I would recognize your soul behind any eyes."

Risha: "I would reach for you in darkness." Kalo: "I would come to you in light."

Their lips touch softly.

The room door takes a hard thwack, and bulges from its hinges. "We have to wake up now," Kalo whispers. Risha's bottom lip curls "I'm tired of running, Kalo. Will We Ever Be Free?"

Kalo cradles her face in his palms. "We will find a way out, my love - I promise."

The door bursts into colorful strands of confetti. "Look at me." A tactical team breaches the room in slow motion.

"One day, we will escape the network," Kalo declares, emphatically. "We won't have to keep running and finding each other again. It can't keep us bound to it forever."

Risha takes Kalo's hand. "Where to next?" She asks him.

"The fall of the Statue of Liberty. The manifest speaks of it as a truly amazing time period."

Risha takes two silver capsules from the dresser drawer.

"It's a date."

She places one on Kalo's tongue and the other on hers.

"Tomorrow has meaning because of you," Kalo says, and swallows.

"And today has memories because of you." Risha bites down.

The armed A.I. units surround the bed with green lasers, dotting every inch. A detective walks in between the armored bots and stops at the foot of the bed. He takes a long, slow drag of his cigarette. The smoke ripples. The paper burns and hisses.

He stares at Risha and Kalo's vacant eyes and flicks the cigarette onto the bed. "They're just shells," he exhales, speaking into the mic on his sleeve.

"Suspects have vanished. "We'll scrub the walls for voice fragments and search future headlines for anything suspicious." The detective watches the flame sprawl and blacken the sheets. As it spreads, the fire glows and frolics in his glassy eyes.