The Voyos Reunion Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Voyos Reunion

  Copyright

  The Voyos Reunion

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Want to know what happens next?

  The Voyos Reunion

  Aubrey Parker

  Copyright © 2017 by Aubrey Parker. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read this work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends about it, to help spread the word.

  Thank you for supporting Aubrey Parker

  CHAPTER ONE

  Alexa reconsidered getting a vault implant.

  She seldom used the Quark heads-up implant in the back of her cornea. She still thought it was weird having data projected inside her eye, but a good vault add-on should work with her corneal display. She could fill one vault chamber with the story she told the board, one with her story for Parker, another for Caspian, and a fourth with what she truly felt, wanted, and believed. Then, she could project each version of “the facts” on her heads-up display and perhaps have an easier time keeping her goddamn lies in order.

  Right now, sitting with Parker in her apartment, she was having a hell of a time remembering what she’d told him and what she hadn’t, not to mention what they were keeping both from the board. There were long, indecisive moments when she considered coming clean: telling Parker the truth about what she’d done with Caspian just so this would be easier. And she almost did, almost would. But there was still the Braverman kid. There was the way Parker was inching Chloe one way using his pawns, and how he kept doing it against Alexa’s wishes.

  Exhibit A: letting Andrew believe he loved Chloe and that Chloe loved him, then bringing him into the inner sanctum board room to use as a weapon against Alexa.

  Exhibit B: this new revelation that as soon as Alexa had sent Chloe to Voyos, he’d sent Slava, too.

  “You’re pissed.” Parker was swirling a glass of 2031 Nebbiolo that Alexa had decided on impulse to finally open because why not, imported at tremendous expense back before the borders had closed. The asshole. A vintage this delicate, they should practically be drinking inside a hyperbaric chamber. All that swirling was going to oxygenate it straight to vinegar.

  “It’s fine.”

  When a woman says, ‘it’s fine,’ it’s never fine. Now I know you’re pissed.”

  “Okay. Then yes. I’m pissed. Since when do you make a unilateral decision to disrupt something I’m very carefully trying to do? You know I’m looking for answers to our questions about Chloe.”

  “Since about the time you started making unilateral decisions to send her away, and to answer our Chloe questions without me.”

  “We agreed it was best to use Chloe to learn about Chloe.”

  Parker nodded. Still swirling his glass. Still treating it like it was a three-year-old wine that would last for days instead of hours under the best conditions. “Yes, we did. And that definitely equated to, let’s just send her to Voyos without asking anyone else.”

  “I didn’t send her. She requested the transfer.”

  “And you didn’t think I would have an opinion?”

  “Jesus Christ, Parker. Her porter came to mine in nullspace. Sarah said that Chloe acted conflicted, almost panicked, and wanted to see her mother. We’ve talked out everything we have on Nicole Shaw. Weren’t we both curious about how she gave birth without a uterus? A sterile woman, with a sterile man?”

  … who wasn’t even around when Chloe was conceived, Alexa almost added, before remembering that she’d spoken to Clive without Parker’s knowing.

  “Yes, but what if Chloe finds out something we don’t want her to know?”

  “What if she finds out exactly what we’ve been dying to find out?” Alexa spat back. “There’s no Beam on Voyos, so we can have nano-cams follow them the entire time. We’ll learn whatever Chloe learns. Don’t you think she’ll have better luck asking her mother questions than we will?”

  “You know how women that age are. There wasn’t school to teach sex ed during the fall and the kind of sex moms taught their daughters about back then was the kind that grabbed you by the neck and took you by surprise. Her midwife’s report reads like Nicole barely knew about the birds and the bees. Why would she need to? Holes are for fucking; she had no idea all that went into baking bread in there until it was time for the loaf to come out.”

  “Is she birthing, shitting, or baking in this metaphor, Parker?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “The records are a dead end. There’s nothing left to find. We only know that Spooner was her most frequent partner, they were together for years, and she literally had no baby making equipment, even though she made a baby anyway. Like you said, Nicole probably couldn’t tell anyone the mechanics; she probably thought she had a tumor for all we know. Social on the island suggests she got depressed around the time of Chloe’s birth, like maybe delusional-depressed. But even with all of that, I don’t know where you expect to find more about Chloe’s origin except hearing it from—”

  “I should have been consulted.” Parker interrupted.

  “Is this about logic? Or about your hurt feelings?”

  “Oh, that’s so typical of—”

  “I guess when you sent Slava, you figured two wrongs must make a right. If I was going to send Chloe off to help our cause, you’d better sabotage it simply because I didn’t—”

  “It’s not sabotage, Alexa! Chloe needs friends; we discussed this. She’ll get warped if all she does is—”

  “But Slava?”

  “What’s wrong with Slava?”

  “I don’t know … Charisma? Benson? People we might not want to know what the two of us are up to without their consent?”

  “Oh, that’s just—”

  “Maybe use your fucking head.”

  “Oh, mature. As if—”

  “Stop whining. It’s—”

  “I’m not whining. This is about—”

  “Oh, whatever, Parker.”

  “Look, if you’d just—”

  “STOP SWIRLING THAT FUCKING WINE!”

  Parker froze.

  His mouth was partway open, his left hand raised, his right on the stem as its base kissed the end table.

  He blinked.

  More quietly, jarred by her own outburst, Alexa said, “It’s thirty years old, Parker.”

  Parker shrugged, eyes still wide, mouth still aghast and open.

  “You’ll kill it with too much aeration. It’s probably only got an hour or so left as it is.”

  Parker took his hand off the glass, then lowered the other hand.

  “What’s going on with you, Alexa?”

  “Nothing’s going on.”

  “Yes, it is. You’re usually bitchy, especially when I do something you feel undermines you. This little song and dance?” He made a back-and-forth gesture between their bodies. “This is hardly anything new. Our time as frenemies is older than this wine. What has you so wound up?”

  “Nothing.”

  But she wasn’t fooling Parker one iota. She should’ve known better than to treat him like a fool. There was a reason that temperamental Parker Barnes had alway
s been Alexa’s closest ally despite his many annoying quirks: he was razor sharp, always saw what wasn’t there, seldom made mistakes and was rarely caught unaware.

  “You’re wrong about Andrew and Chloe,” Parker said evenly. “I stand by that. That’s why I went over your head and brought him into the boardroom. And you’re wrong about her not needing a friend, which is why I sent Slava.”

  “She doesn’t need a friend.”

  “I think she does, and in a very specific way. Kin to what I said about Andrew.”

  “What does Slava have to do with Andrew?”

  “Nothing, as far as I know. But it’s the same argument. You’ll see. She’s going to need Slava. And you’re going to be glad I sent her in the long run.” He licked his lips and sighed, never leaving Alexa’s eyes. “Just like in the long run, I know you were right to send Chloe to Voyos. Even without consulting me.”

  Parker’s eyes on Alexa. Hard. Penetrating. Dark and unflinching. No wonder Parker’s patients had a habit of falling for him. No wonder he’d always had many willing volunteers on which to test his borderline theories.

  “Now it’s your turn, Alexa. What aren’t you telling me? Don’t tell me there’s nothing. I’m not a goddamn fool.”

  Those hard, dark eyes.

  She sighed.

  “I talked to Clive Spooner.”

  “What? When?” But there were so many questions, and Parker couldn’t stop himself from adding, “How?”

  “I know him. We … dated.”

  “You said you didn’t. And we’ve known each other forever. How did I not know this?”

  “I guess we all have our secrets.”

  And I hope you’re mature enough to see that me admitting this now is an act of trust that defeats my deception in hiding it.

  “Okay.” Parker sat back. “What did he have to say when you talked to him?”

  “He didn’t know about Chloe. He thought Nicole was sterile. And he knew about the hysterectomy.”

  “So, I gather he was surprised.”

  “Very. And strangely concerned. He said Nicole always talked about having kids. It was a real passion of hers, and this huge source of regret that she’d never be able to have one.”

  “I guess she got her Christmas wish.”

  Alexa nodded, sipping her own wine. It was wonderful, the body still intact. Of course. She hadn’t mixed the hell out of her glass.

  “He didn’t react how I expected. I don’t know what you’ve seen of Clive, but he’s incredibly arrogant. Has this superior way of talking to everyone. I figured he’d laugh at me, maybe at the predicament Nicole had gotten into — that I figured he’d gotten her into at the time.”

  “Wait. You don’t think it anymore?”

  “He was gone. At that global summit. It ran from Chloe’s conception date in both directions. He couldn’t possibly be the father.”

  “Maybe he was lying.”

  “I was there too, remember? O was brand new. You loved that I was gone so long because I wasn’t there to argue with you.”

  “Maybe she stored his sperm like a stalker, then shoved it up there after he was gone.”

  “Gross. And no. Put two pictures of Chloe and Clive side by side sometime, Parker. It’s obvious just by looking at them, now that I know to compare.”

  “You believe him.”

  Alexa nodded.

  “And that means it’s another dead end.”

  Alexa watched Parker for a second, then decided to keep going. It was kind of a relief to collapse the wall between what Parker and Clive now knew. If he kept proving himself trustworthy, maybe she’d even collapse the second-to-last partition in her versions of this story: between Caspian and Parker. Oh, how nice and simple it would be to only hide things from the board.

  “Maybe and maybe not. I get this strange feeling that Spooner might still be involved.”

  “What makes you say that if you’re so sure that he isn’t the father?”

  Alexa’s lips played with divulging the rest: her reaching out to Caspian, the slip drive, his connections in the East. But telling Parker would be more bad news without anything good to compensate: one more admission that she’d gone behind his back. Maybe if the AI found something in Caspian’s data, she’d come forward. But not yet.

  “It’s just a feeling.”

  “And you’re so good with feelings.”

  “He was strange, Parker. When I told him that Nicole had gotten pregnant, do you know what he did?”

  “Ran away?”

  “He chastised me. In that very British way of his. He acted like I was making a joke about someone with a disability. He appeared offended on Nicole’s behalf.”

  “So what?”

  “You saw how the few Voyos logs we found made it look — like he stuck with her for six years, then dropped her like a hot potato. A few calls after Chloe was born, then nothing. Clive’s surprise means Nicole never told him about the baby.”

  “Why would she, if it wasn’t his?”

  “She seems to have deluded herself into believing that Chloe is his, even though she clearly isn’t. But even if she knows for sure that Clive had nothing to do with it, wouldn’t you think she’d at least bring it up in conversation with a man she’d been with for six years?”

  “Six years fucking,” Parker said. “I don’t exactly feel a burning need to talk about personal stuff with everyone I fuck, no matter how long we’ve been at it.”

  Alexa rolled her eyes. Men.

  “I don’t see where you’re going with this,” Parker continued.

  “I think he still cares about her.”

  “What, Spooner? Cares about Nicole Shaw?”

  “Yes. He said some revealing things after we’d established that he couldn’t be the father, probably because he knew he was off the hook. I get the feeling that he pushed Nicole away first, but that she pushed him away in the end. He said he tried to keep up their calls. Told her he needed to handle a few things but that he wanted to come visit the first free moment he found.”

  “But he didn’t go back.”

  “He told me he wanted to, but couldn’t make the time. Hell, you remember how it was after that summit, Parker. We were supposed to make friends with the East, but it was like none of us were even speaking the same language — and I don’t mean French or German or Chinese versus English. It broke up civilly enough, but the thing was a failure. The press went nuts. Everyone said we needed to go and try again immediately. Everyone thought the East would rally what remained of its armies and attack since diplomatic attempts had failed. Everyone was looking to Clive as the last decade’s favorite son. He was from Britain, but an adopted American. I’m sure he couldn’t make the time. The stress on him must have been overwhelming.”

  “So what?”

  “Circumstances pushed them apart, but I think they’re both still carrying a torch.”

  Parker picked up his glass. He leaned back.“So what?” he said again before sipping.

  “I’m just pointing out why Clive might still matter to this.”

  “If his sperm doesn’t matter, he doesn’t matter.”

  “That’s awfully narrow-minded.”

  “Are you arguing for alternative family values, Alexa? I don’t mean to be rude, but fuck Nicole and Clive and their eternal flame if it didn’t end in a mystery baby. He still has a thing for her and she’s still got one for him. Who cares? This is a mystery, not a sappy love story.”

  Alexa leaned back, to match Parker’s posture.

  “Now that he knows about Chloe, he might try and find her. Do you think he’ll matter then?”

  “He won’t. Believe me: men run from pregnancy like a dog runs from its shit.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “I don’t really see the need to say it nicely. He’s a multi-billionaire. She’s a prostitute, now 20 years older than she was when he was hiding his salami, and there’s a kid out there that he’s rightfully avoided taking responsibility for up
until now. Of course he’s not going back to the crime scene. You can pretend that’s not human nature, but I don’t think you’re that naïve.”

  Alexa considered. Parker was probably right. When they’d met in the park, Clive had appeared offended for Nicole and regretful, but he hadn’t acted like a man looking to complicate what was already an over-complicated life.

  “All right. But if Chloe ever figures it out, she might try to find him.”

  “You said it earlier: there’s no indication that Nicole has ever told Chloe about Clive. We snooped that one conversation with her mother. That’s a thing they do: Chloe asks; Nicole refuses to talk about Daddy. And we’ve both seen Nicole’s profile. Speaking as a psychologist, I’m fairly confident that’s not a secret Nicole is going to give up even with Chloe up in her face over the coming weeks, and without a reason to do so or some proof or something, why would Chloe keep asking?”

  But Alexa was unconvinced. “If Chloe found out another way …”

  “She won’t. As hard as we had to work to find what we did, I’d say one random girl’s chances of learning about Clive Spooner are remote at best.”

  They both leaned back in their chairs. Indecision hovered in the room.

  Parker raised his glass, sniffed, then sipped his wine without swirling.

  “This tastes like shit, by the way,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Chloe stepped from the mag tram that had ushered her over from the registration pavilion. The station unloaded newcomers — both employees and guests, though they arrived in separate trams — onto a wide beach of pure white sand. There were better places for a station, and even now Chloe could see the humming hover transports she’d last ridden when leaving Voyos for DZ.

  The island architects designed it so that new arrivals would immediately see paradise, and feel it between their toes.

  And paradise it was. Growing up on Voyos had numbed Chloe to its beauty. But after months spent in DZ, returning reminded her just how beautiful it had always been. The island’s beauty — like most O clients — had been deliberately constructed. Its bedrock was natural, but after the oceans had risen and the electrostatic levies had become necessary to reclaim it, O had gone all out in their construction of Eden.