Love and Poetry and Rebirths

It was noon and under the perfect blue sky Lady Saph and I were drenched in sunlight. The coven’s white and pastel buildings shimmered in the humidity as they reflected the sunlight back at us. Saph’s pale skin shined like diamonds as her chest and forehead went pink as rose quartz. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and I hoped her hand would never release mine.

While I was soaked in the humidity, she was unaffected. The only perspiration I saw was around her left eye, which glowed silver as she reviewed the itinerary for tomorrow’s festival of Olympus via augment. Since I had no augments, my computer was on a combat grey wristband, on the wrist connected to the hand locked finger-to-finger in hers.

“I was hoping to see you sign up for a play this year,” Saph said as we walked through the central plaza. The fountain pumped more moisture into the atmosphere with a faint, happy bubbling. The plaza, and the entire main area were deserted.

“The only artistry in my contract is the violent kind,” I politely reminded her.

“Oh, my dear I forgot,” she said and clapped her free hand over her breast. “I do like that you consider your profession art. It’s just, my love, you’re such a good artist I thought you’d branch out.” She gave me a faint grin.

“Noted and denied,” I said.

We came in sight of the library. It was a tall, rectangular building that spread its wings with fluttering cotton awnings on all sides. The murmur of dozens of voices rose up from within. I saw a few volunteers carrying coolers of water and smoothies into the shade.

The summer solstice was coming tomorrow, and we’d celebrate with the festival of Olympus, the biggest show of the year. All events at the coven were voluntary, but even the most reclusive woman came to the festival of Olympus.

Saph and I stepped under the awning and saw dozens of women in little groups, reciting their parts under the cool shade. A month ago, Saph had posted a list of myths from ancient Greece, on old earth, on the main notice board Groups formed around each god, and they would put on a little play at the festival, running through the whole day.

If the group consented, their play was filmed and published by the Coven’s account and used for various art festival appearances and public media posts around the planet. We had a chest of awards somewhere, far enough from view that people wouldn’t feel pressured to impress shining, empty critics looking down from an arcology rooftop far, far away.

A cry of delight went up Saph was quickly surrounded by delighted ladies, their bright colors fluttering in a mix of modern fashion and imitation linen tunics and dresses from ancient Greece. I saw the delight in Saph’s eyes that she always got when witnessing true passion and art. So, I slipped from her grasp and hung back to let her bask in the adoration of everyone else in the coven.

A few women said hello to me as they passed, and I waved back. I opened my comp and began doing my daily digital security sweep. The Coven’s virtual barriers were maintained by automated systems, with myself and two volunteers from our membership as the overseers.

Until I heard sandals slap the cobblestones at a light run behind me. I sighed at the familiar steps and waited until she clapped her hands over my eyes.

“Guess what Corporate Commando?” Aelia said.

“Hello trash goblin,” I said and peeled her hands away by the wrists, then twirled myself around to face her.

Aelia’s face was covered by a plastic helmet in an archaic style with bronze cheekplates and a red plume. A red cape hung from her shoulders. She was sunburnt down her pale, bare arms.

“Who are you playing?” I said.

“I’m Hector,” she said and plucked the helmet from her head. Her strawberry hair stuck to her head in sweat-soaked helmet hair. “We’re doing the trojan war when all the greeks went and beat up this city called Troy because my brother stole the Greek King’s bitch. Samara is Achilles. She’s going to stab me to death,” she said.

Oh now that was worrying. A few months back when Aelia had been brought here, she’d been an angry, vulgar teenager lashing out at everyone. The act that had finally gotten me involved was trying to drown young Samara’s kitten.

“Was that your idea, or hers?” I said.

“Neither, ewww. I didn’t realize she was in the group until today. I just signed up to get stabbed. I’ve got experience in that.” She pulled back her cape, revealing a short, black scar under her ribs. One rib lower and the blade would have hit her liver, I thought as a coldness went over me. “Anyways, our group leader Natala got tired of us not talking and gave Samara the Achilles role and told us to take it out on each other.”

I put an arm around Aelia’s shoulders. She grinned and threw both of hers around me. Her hair tickled my cheek. “So, is Samara looking forwards to it?” I said.

“Yes, very much. She’s going to stab me dead, then lower me to the ground,” Aelia said. Then she leaned into my ear and whispered “oh, spoiler alert. Girlboss Prime is plotting.”

I looked to Saph, who was being enthralled by a trio of young women reciting their role for her. Must have been a comedy because the entire recital was bursting into giggles. “Is she going to put me in a play?”

“Yes,” Aelia said.

Did not surprise me at all. “Which one?”

“I don’t know. I just heard a couple people whispering that they wanted you, and Saph said she’d convince you.”

“Then it’s not Saph, it’s a bunch of ladies here,” I said and looked around me at the joyous women. Dr. Phillecia, one of the on-staff therapists, was going around handing out water bottles to the women not distracted by Saph’s appearance. I saw the petite, dark-skinned Samara sitting on the ground, wearing a silly winged helmet. She wore a royal blue cape she’d wrapped around herself like a blanket, hiding herself except for one arm holding a spear planted butt-first into the ground.

“What’s the difference?”

“That it’s a group instead of just one person makes it a conspiracy, not a scheme, silly,” I said, and flicked her shoulder. “Let’s go play along.”

I rejoined Saph, Aelia on my heels. Saph immediately took my hand and linked us together again. “I long to explain the mythology of ancient Greece to my brave guardian angel.”

“I’m your chief of security,” I said dryly as my cheeks burned so red I swear the perspiration boiled off them.

“You force me to use more poetic terms,” Saph said, to rippling laughter around us. All the older women gave me knowing stares. Aelia flicked my side under the sleeve of my red pantsuit.

“Guardian Angel is fine, Girlboss Prime,” I said.

Saph touched my chin with a finger and turned me around. She smiled, and asked me to do a public affection with her.

I glared back, ‘I know what you’re planning.’

Her smile sharpened at her thin black brow, the corners of her mouth into an imperious smirk. ‘I know you know, and you can’t stop me.’

How could I resist? I kissed her and let her steer me through her embrace.

We continued through the crowd. The women quieted down as they broke for water and smoothies of fresh fruits.

“What play am I in?” I said quietly. We reached the doors of the library itself.

“In here. Come and be patient please,” Saph said and pushed the doors. Air conditioning hit us so fast I felt Saph shivered and squeezed her bicep. The library was a cozy, high tower with four progressively smaller floors. Data stacks rose, evenly spaced around the walls encased in carbon superconductor. Between each stack were crammed books, stood on light colored wood. The stacks had digital record anyone could stream to their computer or jack into directly with the right augments.

The first three floors were all public spaces lined with open lounge chairs and benches. The fourth, I knew, was silent reading only.

Saph led me straight up to the fourth floor and to one of the private study pods. She knocked on the door.

The woman that opened the door was a petite lady in a short-sleeved formal blouse and a khaki skirt. She fit into an office. I’d met a lot of women dressed like her, usually assistants to the corpies who actually hired me.

“Hey,” Renee said cautiously, her pale skin flushing red in embarrassment. I knew a few things about Renee. She had a security flag on her, meaning it was not safe for her to leave the legal and physical safety bubble of the Coven at this time. Those were used for women with corporate bounties on their head, or obsessive exes who were high powered corpies. I knew Renee had both.

I knew little else about her, which meant she kept quiet and to herself mostly.

“You want me?” I said. No, I’d seen Renee once, lying in a field near the cliffs, in the embrace of another woman as I tiptoed past them.

“Yes please,” Renee said and bowed her head.

“This isn’t a boardroom meeting, you can be human,” Saph said and stroked her shoulder.

Renee nodded, throwing her carefully bobbed hair astray. “Ms. Gonzalez, I need your help. I’m going to be playing in the legend of Adonis, the god of rebirth tomorrow. I’m Adonis.

I nodded for her to go on, and crossed my arms. I was unsure where to go.

“Adonis was a mortal man who wooed Artemis, the greek’s goddess of love. That’s who my fiancé Cara is playing. He got stabbed by a boar while hunting and died in her arms. Moved by her tears, her father Zeus, king of the gods, descended and resurrected Adonis as the god. I need your help with the rebirth part,” she said.

“You want me to play Zeus then. Do I have to carry you?” I said. My first thought was that there were several strong women who could play the part. My second thought was that Saph would have said the same, which meant there was more.

“Yes,” Renee said and giggled sharply. “That’s not why, though. Before I came here I spent my life climbing the corporate ladder. I stabbed a lot of undeserving people in the back, and the front. Until, I came up with a new propriety app. It was an AI software for calculating business deal odds based on people’s psychological profiles.” She pulled out a computer slate. “This is the sum total of my years of work. My wealth, past, and future.”

“What happened?” I said.

“My husband was the executive VP of a finance company. He saw me working on it and decided to steal it. I stopped him, but his company has me under a lawsuit and he’s got a bounty on my head. He told me that since we were a team he should get half the rewards, after he’d spied on me, filed a copywright lawsuit, and offered to sell it to his company,” she said. She glowered.

I rolled my eyes. Corpies. Renee was just a corpie who’d gotten lucky to fall into our clutches instead of the bottom of the arcology.

“Do you think he cares after…how many years?”

“Three of me in hiding, three here,” she said. “And I promise you he does. I always wanted to one day break the injunction, sell the program, then use my fortune to get revenge on everyone.”

“I mean, shit, I don’t blame you,” I said.

“I’ve realized it doesn’t matter though,” she said. “I have Cara, I have a chance at a new future. I can’t apologize for anything I did in the arcologies, but I’m not sure an apology would matter to anyone.”

“It might, but forgiveness has to be earned, not taken,” I said.

She bit her lip and nodded. “I wouldn’t forgive myself. Anyways. The point is, I want to move on and be someone new. I need to delete that file, and destroy the last connection to my old life, but I can’t. It’s just too much time investment and money.”

“Why not have Cara do it?” I said, as I realized what she wanted me to do.

“I don’t want her to carry the emotional baggage for me. I want to leave this packed away forever and forget about it,” she said.

And she went to me because I’m the chief of security.

“You know if you delete it, it can be brought back through data recovery?” I said.

“I was hoping you’d have something capable of destroying it,” she said.

“Yeah I do, you sure about that?” I said.

She nodded. “I don’t know if there’s a form I need to fill out, but I consent to you forcibly destroying my only creation.”

I took her hands. It felt appropriate. “I’ll do it.”

I spent the rest of the day rehearsing. I can’t act for shit, but I learned that firstly, if I said something with enough feeling it at least imitated an acting performance. And secondly, Cara and Renee were phenomenal at the whole playing a tragic couple and reciting poetry aloud part. Enough that I could vanish into the background and just belt out my lines for one scene

By nightfall I was fucking tired, and the two of them were both so nervous their hands were shaking.

The next morning, breakfast was served in the central garden at 8AM, amidst the early morning mist. I came down in sweats and a T-shirt and ate eggs and fruit sitting by the fountain, while everyone else chattered. I smelt the nerves in the air. It was comforting that I wasn’t alone in my stomach turning itself into knots.

I saw Aelia sitting on the edge of her group. Samara was on the other edge. The two of them passed glares across the gap through each other’s bangs.

At 10AM, Saph stood, and led us all down the path to the Amphitheater.

The women had decorated our great stage over the preceding week. Now the mist melted away and the altar, decorated with white and blue flowers, and the stage erected behind it emerged. Nyla stood atop the stage alone, dressed in a sleek gold toga with wings on her back.

I took my seat beside Renee. “Are you still willing to do this?” I said.

She nodded quickly.

Cara reached over and squeezed her hand. “Did you memorize your lines, Ms. Gonzalez?” she said past her ear to me.

“Yeah,” I said.

The course went as follows: the first group went backstage to dress and warm up while Saph and a couple other elders gave introductory speeches. Then Nyla, our master of ceremonies took the stage and announced the first act and what myth it was from with her booming voice. The first group came to do their rendition of this demigod girl being kidnapped to hell, and her mother causing eternal winter while searching for her.

Fair on mom, I thought.

Anyways, as they performed, group two went backstage. Aelia and Samara were on opposite sides of the group as they headed back, refusing to look at each other. I could barely focus on the first group as I recited my lines in my head and worried about Trash Gremlin. When everyone rose and cheered, I stood and clapped politely.

Then group two came out, all eight of them playing at soldiers with helmets, spears, and regal cloaks flowing behind. A drone projected the bow of a great ship on the marble stage back behind them.

After a bow, they divided into groups by red and blue cloaks. Samara’s put down their backs and made camp in the shadow of the great ship.

Then Aelia and the others crept up on hands and knees. I bit my lip to stop from grinning. I couldn’t help it, this was amazing. When Aelia’s group screamed and charged I cheered with them, then a dozen other women cheered in the crowd and saved me from embarrassment

Aelia went straight for a tall woman. They swung spears fiercely, but with no technique. Until the second woman blatantly let down her guard and took a spear to the chest.

“My heart, I am slain!” she cried and toppled on her side. We in the audience cheered.

The fighting stopped as Aelia planted the spear in her.

“Behold, the hero of the Greeks, slain on the whims of a jilted king,” she said. The cheers redoubled.

Until Samara removed her cloak. She knelt by the slain ‘Achilles,’ and took up the dead girl’s cloak.

The amphitheater went dead silent. A lone bird flapped overead.

Samara removed her helmet. “Now you know who you’re fighting, Trojan.”

Aelia backed away a step. “I thought that was you I was fighting there. I fought the girl honorably.”

“You gave her the honor of your sword,” Samara said and advanced. Aelia gave ground. I saw her hands trembling. “For that I will take your life.”

“Let’s make a pact then, that we will fight with-“

“There is no pact between lions and women. You will wander the underworld without eyes or a head. All the spirits of our ancestors will gaze upon you and know, here is Hector, the fool who thought she killed Achilles,” Samara said.

Aelia lunged at her.

It wasn’t a fight. Samara had clearly trained in gymnastics at some point because she danced in circles around Aelia, her body flowing like her cloak. She poked over and over. Aelia swung wildly after her, only hitting her after-image.

Until Samara swiped a knee out from under Aelia. She lunged in and seized her red cloak, then swung her to the ground. Aelia squeaked in pain as she hit the ground.

I raised up on my haunches, in case Samara went too far.

Samara knelt on Aelia’s chest, and poked her throat with her spear..

“You are dead, Trojan,” she said. Then she peeled off Aelia’s helmet, revealing her ruddy face, eyes wide in terror. “And now I can forgive you.”

She caught Aelia by the cheeks and kissed her forehead deeply. Aelia vanished beneath Samara’s cloak

I leapt up and cheered. The entire audience screamed in delight. As the rest of the women lined up for the bow, Samara’s lowered herself and kissed Aelia right on the lips.

The two of them left the stage last, and did not rejoin the audience.

The show got livelier from there. Comedies took center stage, punctuated by tragedies. Stupid, drunk gods, stupid drunk mortals, and a bit of bad communication and incest filled the day.

Then, it was our turn. The three of us headed backstage.

In the stuffy, overheated room we sweat as we prepared. Cara powered up the fabricator and put in her designs in, while Renee did our makeup. She powdered us all up with glittering silver, then whipped out our brush. I got highlights of gold, while they both got silver.

The fabricator spun out a royal white tunic with gold trim around my collar and seams. I got a gold tassel, and a gold crown shaped like branches.

“Uh, what tree is that?” I said.

“An olive tree branch friend, the ancient Greeks loved this fruit called an olive,” Renee said. “Duck please.”

“What?” I said.

“Bow your head. Bend over,” she fanned herself.

I did so, and she fit it in my wavy black hair.

Cara got a white robe with pink trim, and a translucent veil. Renee, playing the mortal, got drab grey.

There were also our stage props. We got one of the theater drones, and gave it a shimmering silk cloak that Cara had brought with her to the theater. There was another drone to play the boar.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Cara said.

“It’s your time,” Lyra, Nyla’s adopted daughter said. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” I lied. My stomach churned in knots. A look at Renee, pale and glistening with nervous sweat, made me feel better. At least we can be terrified together.

We headed out, us three. I went to stand at the back of the stage in the shadows. A drone hovered over my head, shining a dull light on me, just enough for my crown to gleam.

Cara snapped her fingers and a drone raced across the stage, dying it into a lush green field.

Renee took a deep breath, and stumbled onstage. She dropped to her knees and began foraging in the holographic grass. She plucked something from the ground and devoured it with the vigor of a starving woman.

Cara flitted around the edges of the stage, first watching, then venturing a step or two out. Until she finally got the courage to walk out and confront the woman, bringing an apple as a gift.

When Cara took the starving mortal in her arms, I shook my head emphatically, as I’d been coached. My crown shimmered disapproval in the daylight

Their romance blossomed as they camped, and hunted. Until Renee declared she wanted some meat in her diet. Cara promised her a dinner from Olympus and went off

I stepped out and grabbed her shoulder as she went past, then took a deep breath.

“My dearest daughter, goddess of love in the world. You can find the heart of any disheveled, disbelieving woman. Yet you cannot keep her beside you forever. Her years are numbered shortly, her life is a blink before your eyes. Do not give her your heart.” I squeezed her tight, like I was leading a captive back to my corpie bosses in ages past.

Cara got all flustered and tearful. “Dearest father, king of the gods. You’ve seated yourself on Mount Olympus so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to give your heart to anyone. Not take, as you are wont to do, but give. Get off me.” She shook her arm. I was supposed to let her go. I held on to a few seconds, staring sadly at her, until I relaxed my grip and let her slip away.

That was when a shaper drone, designed as a muscular, exaggerated boar raced across the stage. Renee grabbed her walking stick and swung at it. The drone, as we’d programmed it, didn’t notice and the stick broke on its flank before it knocked her off her feet.

When Cara got to her, the two blood packets had ruptured and she was curled up in a little ball, soaked red.

Cara let out a scream. It went on and on as my hair stood on end, and I wondered if Saph would ever find me like that after one fight went wrong. It kept going until she fell to her knees and swayed over Renee, red in the face.

She slumped down atop her, then gathered her in her arms as she sobbed. Through tears she choked out a speech about every second mattering.

Then she left the mortal human lying in the field, forever and stumbled away sniffling, exit stage right.

I breathed in and strode out. I stood over Renee. The computer carrying her heart was in her hands. I interfaced with it.

“My dear daughter. Why won’t you listen to my wisdom of the ages. Why must you be a teenager for a thousand years?” I rolled my eyes.

I knelt at Renee’s side, and cradled her in my arms. She was professionally petite, meant to squeeze into an office. She felt weightless in my grasp. “Dear daughter. For you and the tears you’ve shed, I shall make an exception to the order of life and death.

I reached up, and the drone descended, dropping the silver blanket with it. An ocean breeze blew up and it unfurled like a sail as it fluttered out of reach.

Nope, I thought as I vaulted up and snatched it at the tip of my fingers. It fluttered angrily as I brought it down over us like a tent.

“Sam,” Renee whispered.

“Yeah, you ready?” I opened my comp and clamped her hands in mine. I watched it connect to her device. Saw her first creation unfurl before me in lines of code.

“I can’t do it. I was just thinking of all the ways I could make it work and publish it anyways. Maybe there’s a black market for my stuff. Maybe,” I saw the hope flicker in her eyes. I couldn’t tell if that was merely desperation, or a true idea. I didn’t know her. I just knew what she’d told me before.

“You already told me to do it,” I said and uploaded the system slayer file.

“Wait, no, please,” she seized my hand.

Too late, I killed her first creation. It disintegrated into corrupted, broken code. Then the storage system triggered an update, and overrode what was left. No hope of recovery. Like Renee had wanted me to do.

Her eyes sparkled with tears. She grasped at my wrist faintly, helplessly.

I yanked off the cloak and the wind carried it away. “Rise. Child. May you be free from the cycle of life and death. I helped her to her knees, fake blood dripping off. Renee didn’t utter her lines. She stumbled in my grasp, dazed. I lowered her back as my palms began to sweat.

Cara dropped to her knees beside her and threw her arms around her neck. Cara was theatrically sobbing. Renee, genuinely holding back tears.

I stood, and turned my back on the audience, and shook my head as I walked away. “Behold, the power of love. Behold, the power of rebirth. Gone is the cloud of death forever, young miss. Rise anew, rise fresh, and may you make the best of this blank slate.” I strode away into the darkness and turned around to watch, my crown sparkling.

I only came out a minute later, for the bow and the applause. Cara stood in the middle as the bridge, she took our hands and we bowed to the floor.

None of us returned to the audience. Cara led the sobbing woman away by the hands, towards the cliffs and the crash of ocean waves below.

I thought about going back. My head hurt, and I felt drained. Not physically drained, because I’d done so much worse. My mind was just dead and all my thoughts fell out of my ears and popped out of existence. Backstage I stripped off the costume then stumbled back to the dormitories and headed home. I grabbed vodka from my fridge, chugged, then threw myself down in bed to bury my face in the pillow and enjoy the buzz. That I was painting my pillow silver and gold didn’t matter.

Periodically, I rolled over for another drink, then rolled back. I thought about calling Saph, but remembered she had responsibilities to the entire Coven right now.

I was alone on this peninsula. The corporate commando on an island of dramatics and artists. The lone luddite.

Hey, that was a big word, I thought with delight.

I was finally drifting off to sleep, when someone kicked my door. Softly.

“Grrrrr.” I put my hands over my ears.

Another kick hammered the door.

Fuck. I leapt up and landed on my feet. The alcohol burned through my veins like fire, like electrical power from a reactor that drove me towards the door.

“What?” I said and yanked it open. Sunlight and salty air greeted me.

“I told you she’d be drunk,” Aelia said. She and Samara stood before me, arm in arm, cloaks still on their shoulders. I blinked and realized they’d swapped cloaks.

“Why are you here?” I said.

“We brought your crown,” Aelia said and held it up. It shined in the mid-afternoon light. “Bend down.”

I must have been drunk because I did a big sweeping end of show bow. Four slender hands placed it on my head. “It fits,” Samara declared.

I stood and shook my head, but the crown held steady.

“Cara asked us to give it to you. She said that Renee’s kind of overwhelmed, but she’ll be grateful when she calms down,” Aelia said. She did a little dance on the spot. “It’s so pretty!”

“I know it is,” I said. I grabbed my door to shut it. “I’m not giving you alcohol for it.”

They both burst into laughter. “I’m already drunk, don’t worry,” Aelia said. She pulled out a little bottle of something green.

“We also came here because I wanted to thank you,” Samara said.

“For?” I said.

“Civilizing this one,” she said, and pinched Aelia’s shoulder.

“You’re welcome,” I said. I flicked both their foreheads. Aelia wrinkled her nose and Samara giggled. “Goodnight.”

I place the crown with great care between Hugz and Mumz on their charging racks. I threw myself back in bed and smiled into my pillow as I fell asleep.

---

Hello friends. As always, thank you for reading my latest tale of poetry lesbians. They are a cast I return to semi-regularly, whenever I want a warmer, fluffier sort of story.

The Founder’s Chosen, Sequence 02 begins next week for those of you who want more crunch mil-scifi. If you’re interested in either of those themes or just want a new scifi story every hump day, please like, comment, and subscribe.

Thank you, and I’ll see you next week.