From the chair in his private office, Negin Mal glared down at his personal guards from the raised platform he’d had constructed behind the desk to enhance his psychological advantage.  To Mal's consternation, Victus’s air of cool detachment hadn’t grown any warmer. In spite of the browbeating Mal was giving the man, he steadfastly refused to show the appropriate level of contrition for his actions the night before. 

Lucas did his best to mirror his teacher’s example, but the collar around his neck was feeling heavier by the moment.  Unlike Victus, he was subject to corporal punishment.  In his life, Lucas had put his body through a truly remarkable amount of physical abuse and he was expert at not letting physical discomfort affect him.  Six months prior, he would have sworn that no amount of pain would break him, but lately the discipline collar had been challenging that resolve. 

By itself, the agony of having his pain nerves artificially stimulated would have been endurable. But having no personal control over that pain?  That pushed the limits of his tolerance.  Although his eyes never left the negin’s, Lucas’s uncropped ears were submissively folded in a conscious attempt to soothe his employer’s ire.   It didn’t appear to be working, because the vein in Mal’s bulbous forehead was throbbing harder with each passing minute.  Worse, he was flicking the lid of that gods-be-damned discipline remote back and forth.  Open and shut...open and shut… as if his fingers itched to use it.

“I don’t buy it,” Mal sneered. “You need to find a better explanation why you felt compelled to make a fool of me in front of everyone in that hall.”  He leaned forward in his chair, feigning interest in whatever either man might say.

“The truth requires no explanation,” Victus said. “And in this case, it rather speaks for itself.  Your behavior after the conclave seemed odd, but we created a plausible explanation.  Your guests now view you as a man who has an odd sense of humor rather than a crime boss who throws a tantrum when someone disagrees with him.  I should think you would prefer to have your actions viewed as an eccentric attempt at humor rather than a temperamental call to arms against someone you disagree with.”

Oh, shut up!  Lucas thought. Of all the bone-headed things to say, now is not the time to pull out the logic machine and crank it for the negin!   He coughed quietly in an attempt to catch Victus’ attention and get him to shut his yap.  You don’t have fifty-thousand volts of discipline collar locked around your neck, asshole!

After Mal’s outburst, the ascension ceremony, which up until that point had been running smoothly, had ground to an awkward halt.  Unlike a formal dinner, exits from a ceremonial party could be made at any time, and after Mal’s loss of composure the guests had all made a run for the door, each eager to be the first to retrieve their communicator and report the evening’s unusual events to whichever social outlet might listen.  It had been a gaffe of epic proportion, one which would take time and effort to overcome.  Mal ached to take his frustrations out on someone, if only to fool himself into thinking that he could not possibly have been responsible for them.

Ignoring Lucas’s best attempts to silence him, Victus spelled out.  “After you demanded that I teach your adversary a lesson, the best way I saw to minimize your public ridicule was to take you literally and suggest to your guests that your loss of control was a misbegotten attempt at humor.”  He wasn’t certain, but Victus suspected that Mal might finally be understanding what had happened.  He softened his voice marginally, encouraging sympathy.  “The alternative would have been I refuse your demands with hundreds of important people watching, and that would have been far more damaging.”

Mal sat back in his chair, obviously annoyed at his Protector.  “I’m a grand negin now,” he said, “and I don’t give the most microscopic of fucks what any of those people think at this point. They can’t touch me, and I wanted to show them how much they couldn’t touch me.  You knew what I wanted,” he said, accusingly, “and if you didn’t think you could carry out my wishes, you should have delegated the task to someone who could.” 

Mal’s viperous gaze snapped to Lucas.  “Don’t think you’re innocent in this, slave Lucas,” he said, drawing out the last two words as if they were pejorative.  “You knew perfectly well what I wanted, but you failed to step up.”  He stood, plucked the crystal wine goblet off his desk and moved toward them, flicking the lid of the discipline remote open and shut...open and shut, as he walked.  Neither varius looked anywhere but straight ahead.

When Mal walked behind the two, the flicking noise ceased.   One moment it was there, regular as a metronome, and the next...silence.  As unnerving as the sound had been, not hearing it was far worse.   Lucas tried to remember if the last sound he’d heard was the lid clicking shut, or had it been open? Lucas allowed one ear to swivel behind him, and immediately wished he hadn’t when he heard Mal chuckle low in his throat, pleased that he’d unnerved the fighter.  A half -second later, his canine ears heard the infinitesimally tiny sound of a small plastic button rubbing against the metal of the discipline controller’s case.

An annoying tickle built between his eyes, the unmistakable sensation of the collar’s lowest setting. Lucas closed his eyes and waited, wondering what the negin would do, powerless to stop him.

“You will never maintain popular support if you mistreat those who do not agree with you,” Victus said, hoping that Mal would catch his broader meaning and apply it to the way he was treating Lucas.

“All well and good if I had any interest in maintaining popular support,” the negin drawled, “but I don’t.  Unless it’s somehow escaped your attention, this is not a democracy.” He tossed back a good portion of his breakfast wine and looked at the nearly empty glass.  “What I told those people in my speech yesterday wasn’t sunshine blown up their asses.  This house really does make the best luxury goods on the planet.  Do you think that’s because the workers are so happy that they make exceptionally fine products all by themselves?  Hmm?” He arched an eyebrow at Victus, daring disagreement.

“The workers might complain from time to time, but they stay here and work hard because they know they’re famous for making the best Galise has to offer.   They produce because we demand that they produce, and quality remains high because management does not let them slack off.” He stabbed a finger at Victus. “The world needs carnivores like me every bit as much as it requires leaf-eating pacifists like yourself.”

Victus suspected that Negin Mal had not intended that last comment to be complementary, but he chose to take it as such and remain silent.

Lucas remained similarly silent, but knowing more about the Kenzine’s abilities and talents than the Negin ever would, he fumed.  He caught the laying back of his ears and brought them back upright, but not soon enough.  His eyes narrowed when the negin’s dark chuckle of amusement alerted him that his reaction hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“You, Lucas, are a different animal altogether.”  He walked slowly around the two men, ending up standing in front of them. The discipline remote was held loosely by his side, in plain sight, should Lucas have chosen to look down.

He did not.  Discipline drilled into his brain by years of military training kept his eyes locked front and center, no matter how badly he wanted to see what Mal was doing with the controller.  But oh, how he wanted to, especially when his ears picked up the tiny squeak of ancient buttons flexing under Mal’s thumb.  Mal was playing with him, Lucas knew, trying to see how much distraction he could tolerate before he broke and looked down.  Perversely, Mal’s actions only reinforced Lucas’s determination to keep his chin up and his eyes steady.

Deciding he was finished with the Kenzine, Mal waved his hand dismissively.  “We’re through here.  Get out.”

The acidic expression on the negin’s face troubled him, but Vic was not about to complain.  He was glad the audience had ended.  After a shallow bow of respect which had only the slightest whiff of sincerity, he turned and motioned Lucas to follow him out.  The negin interrupted their escape.  “Not you, Lucas.”  Both men stopped without turning.  “We need to talk.”

Victus turned along with Lucas, but only the younger man was motioned back to stand in front of Mal. “This doesn’t concern you, Victus.”  His thumb flicked shut the cover of the controller, but the device remained clutched in his hand. “It’s house business.  I’ll call when I need you.”

Victus quelled his impulse to argue on Lucas’s behalf.   Doing so would only make things worse, perhaps even to the point where Mal killed Lucas and replaced him with another candidate.  As much as it hurt him to do so, Victus had no choice but to turn and walk out of the room. 

He closed the door behind him, but did not immediately walk away.  He stood there a moment, fervently wishing there were something he could do to help Lucas, and berating himself for his impotence.  As frustrating as Victus occasionally found his trainee, he was fond of him and didn’t want to see him hurt.  Against his own better judgment, he lingered a moment, straining to hear what was happening on the other side of the heavy door.

He heard nothing.  Many of the doors on the estate had been soundproofed, and even if they had been thin plywood it would have been a simple task to install electronic hushers so no one on the outside could hear what business was being transacted.   Regardless of what was going on inside the room, Victus could not be seen loitering.  Doing so would foment suspicion among the staff, word of his loitering would inevitably get back to the negin, and that was the last thing he needed.  With nothing more than a quirk in his lip line betraying his anxiety, he strode back to their quarters to wait.

Not for the first time, he questioned his decision to involve Lucas in the madness that was House Mal.   To have put anyone into a situation where he would be under the direct control of a man with Mal’s sadistic tendencies seemed ill-considered.  Given the speed with which Rudex Mal went through personal servants, Lucas MacKenzie’s chances of survival seemed poor at best.

Back at their quarters, Victus keyed the lock and paused to sniff the air.  The smell of the chambermaids was strong in the room.  The women were omnipresent, but were almost never seen.  It was their job to be surreptitious while doing their work, but Victus found their ghostly movement unsettling. Although personal effects never went missing, they often weren’t quite where one left them. 

As usual, the room had been serviced with quick efficiency.  He and Lucas had been out of their room for no more than fifteen minutes, but there was no trace of the empty food platters left behind from Lucas’s snack the night before, the bathroom had been serviced, and there wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen.   In Victus’ mind, this presented further evidence that their comings and goings were being closely monitored. 

This came as little surprise. In a house as large and well-run as House Mal, accomplishing daily housekeeping tasks without disturbing the residents, none of whose schedules were regular, would have been nearly impossible without some form of monitoring taking place. It would not have surprised him if someone were assigned to monitor a hidden camera in the hall which watched their door - someone who signaled a platoon of maids to descend upon their quarters ten seconds after they vacated it every morning.

Under normal circumstances, Victus would have found the thought of a troop of paramilitary housemaids to be humorous, but with Lucas still in the clutches of the angry negin, the image only made him feel queasy inside.  It occurred to him that, given the negin’s general paranoia, there was little reason to assume that such monitoring would be constrained to cameras outside their room - not that he cared whether his own moment-by-moment activities were transmitted to the world at large.  Part of the Kenzine code was to live life transparently, doing nothing that could be embarrassing and being embarrassed by nothing that was honorable.  

The thought of Lucas parading around their room buck naked was unsettling, however.  Would the man have been so openly provocative had he realized that someone was watching him?   Probably not, and he would have become unhinged at the thought that everything he was saying was being funneled into the ears of… well, anyone else in the house.  Lucas was an opinionated man, and had not been shy to share those opinions with Victus.  Not all of his viewpoints would garner him favor with others in the house.

The possibility of his friend’s privacy being violated made Victus’ ears lower fractionally.  He moved to the crate of equipment he’d brought with him from the monastery.  The crate itself had been constructed as if it were furniture; well-made but bland, styled to blend in with almost any decor.  Anyone not knowing its origin would assume it to be nothing more than a mismatched end table, but when it opened at Victus’s touch it revealed far more than playing cards and a Gideon bible. 

Inside the crate was a small treasure trove of electronic goodies, most of which had been designed to conceal the objects’ true purpose.  Upon arrival, Victus had issued Max complete and continuing access to the contents, as was proper for a guest, but he doubted that the man had any idea what ninety-percent of the devices actually did.   Victus pulled out a small, wooden box of incense, closed the crate and assumed the lotus position.  He placed a cone of incense into the holder built into its lid, activated the incendiary function and closed his eyes to slits.

A small curl of smoke emerged from the top of the cone, releasing the essence of patchouli and herbs.  It was one of Master Dagen’s favorite scents, and it reminded Victus of his early training in the monastery.  His father had pressed these cones himself, and had given them to Victus as a birthday present many years ago.  Roughly thirty seconds after activating the smoke, a high-pitched squeal emerged from the tiny electronic emitter which had been pressed into the charcoal.  The sound quickly rose from shrill to ultrasonic, quickly passing out of Victus’ range of hearing.  It was a sound intended to serve not only as a signal to Victus that the unit was active, but to suggest to whomever might be eavesdropping on him that a microphone was malfunctioning.

Victus counted to five before tapping the top of the cone to stop the curl of smoke.  He carefully put the cone back in its case and arose from the floor, pulling his comm from its holster as he moved.  He set it to detect hidden monitoring devices which transmitted on standard frequencies, and the result came back negative.   He re-ran the sweep for non-standard frequencies with similar results.  

A third scan on experimental and theoretical wavelengths took longer, but returned eight results.  Four turned out to be nothing more than light emitters and the remote control to the room’s vidscreen, but the rest were tiny, sophisticated cameras which were apparently sending images out on a frequency which was both very weak and very close to that of the house’s wireless power grid.  Given what Victus remembered about interfering wavelengths that should not have been possible, but since he had found the four tiny cameras, his knowledge on the subject was clearly out of date.

But what to do about them? Victus was confident that the incense device had burned out the cameras.  But, even if he were wrong, he could minimize their threat by alerting Lucas to their presence.  He wanted to smash them, but if he left them where they were, he could pretend that he was unaware of them and minimize their exposure. If he destroyed them, whoever installed them would probably try again, and next time they might hide them successfully. 

It didn’t take Victus long to see the flaw in his logic.  It assumed that the cameras had been installed by someone of their own house. If they were being monitored by an outside entity, pretending that they didn’t exist could have disastrous results.   With this in mind, he carefully dug the cameras out of their hiding spots.  The devices were smaller than a pea, and each was bonded to a short, fiber-optic cable no thicker than a boar bristle.  He placed them in a small, metal box and saved them to show to Leland and Max.

When he told them, he would adopt an attitude of concerned surprise, assuming that their own house was innocent of wrongdoing and that foreign agents must have planted similar devices throughout the estate.  No matter who had been responsible for planting the cameras, the two men would play their parts.  Leland would fume and fuss, and Max would turn into an outraged tornado of activity, upsetting the house for days to sweep for possibly non-existent surveillance equipment.

Aware of the time, he looked at his chron.  Fifteen minutes had passed since he’d left Lucas with the negin, and Victus was becoming concerned.  Nothing good ever came from an extended audience with their employer.   He had little time to worry about it before the door to their quarters swung open to admit a decidedly ragged-looking bodyguard.

Victus rose from where he’d been sitting, but a weary handpaw forestalled his ministrations.  “I’m all right,” Lucas assured him, but it came out in a tired gasp.

A month earlier, Victus would have taken Lucas at his word and left him alone, as much a lesson in humility as a recognition of the other man’s autonomy.  But in that time Victus had come to view Lucas as more than just another guard to train, and he felt compelled to help.  Ignoring Lucas’s assurance, he moved to the man’s side.  “You’re hurt,” he said, bluntly.  The smells of singed fur and burned flesh made that fact patently obvious.  Without asking, he carefully pulled Lucas’ shirt over his head and threw it on the desk, then began an examination of the skin under the collar.

“I’ll be okay,” Lucas protested, halfheartedly trying to pull away from his teacher. “Just let it go.”

Victus firmed his grip and held his student still.  The skin under the collar’s contact points felt unnaturally warm, and some of Lucas’s lighter-colored fur appeared scorched.  “He burned you?  It was not a question.

“Yes, he burned me,” Lucas said, exasperated.  He tried again to pull away from Victus. “Can we please forget about this and move on?”

The skin around Victus’ lips tightened.  “Sit still,” he ordered, then remembered that he was not talking to a recalcitrant child.  “I will not mention it again, but please sit still while I work.”  He put his hands near the burn marks, but did not touch them.   It was helpful to have his hands as close as possible to the source of the injury to feel temperature differences through the tips of his paw pads, but he didn’t need to be on top of the burns to do that.  He’d used ancient healing techniques on Lucas a number of times already, and each healing bond he established made the next one easier.

He slipped into Lucas’s energy stream and ran along it until he encountered the insulted nerve endings.  As he applied his own energy to the healing process, he noticed that the burns were more extensive this time than they’d been in the past.  Doing a little more investigation, he discovered other recently-injured patches of nerve clusters which had healed poorly.  “This has happened before,” he said, quietly.

Lucas sighed.  “Yeah,” he said, dispiritedly.

“You need to tell me when something like this happens,” Victus chastised him, his voice sounding very far away.  “I can still heal most of the damage,” he said, after a moment’s evaluation, “but some of them… they are too old for me to do anything.  The nerves are dead by now.” 

He did what he could for the old injuries, hoping he wasn’t wrong about his chances of fixing the damage.  It was hard enough to repair nerve damage when it was fresh.  After the damage had scarred over, all bets were off. He did the best he could and withdrew.  “Feel better?” he asked.

Lucas rolled his neck around, popping a few vertebrae in the process. “Yeah, I guess.”  He looked over at Victus, who had come around to sit beside him on the edge of the desk.   “Thanks.”

“You have to let me know when he does this to you,” Victus repeated, quietly. 

“Okay, sure.” Lucas chuffed a bark of wry laughter.  “But you’re going to be busy because it happens every day.”

Victus sat still for a moment. “Why did you not tell me?”

Lucas shook his head somberly.  “Because you would have wanted to heal me.”

“Is that not the point?” Victus asked, sounding baffled.

“I’ve seen you after you heal someone,” Lucas said, wearily.  “It totally punches your clock.  No way am I doing that to you every time Negin Asshole gets an itchy trigger finger.” He pushed himself off the desk, suddenly feeling disgusted with himself that he’d let Victus spend his energy healing an injury that seemed minor to him.  “Why don’t you get some rest,” he suggested.  “I need to pay Pearli back for that plate of food she left in here last night.”

“Pay her back?” Victus asked.  “With what?” 

Lucas grinned lewdly and hiked up the beltline of his pants.  “When you’re good, you don’t need money.”

Victus rolled his eyes.  “For the love of God, Lucas, how can you do something like that to such an innocent young girl?”

Lucas canted his head.  “She’s not that young,” he said, “and she’s far from innocent.”

“I suppose that explains why she has been acknowledging your presence at the table, lately.” Victus looked disappointed.  “I thought she was finally seeing the error of her ways.”

Lucas shrugged.  “Whatever.  She’s treating me better,” he smiled lazily, “now that I’m...’treating’ her.”

Victus rolled his eyes. “I suppose every man needs his release every now and then.”  He waved a handpaw toward the door. “Go. Have fun.  Take your comm and be back here in thirty minutes.  Be prepared to meet me in two minutes, should I call for you.”

Lucas smiled and headed for the door.  He paused for a moment before leaving.  “You could have your needs met too, you know.  She’s only bedding me because you’re unavailable.”

Victus shut his mouth, which had somehow fallen open.  “Flattering, I’m certain,” he said, finally, “but not what I’m interested in.”

The angling of his head caused one of Lucas’s ears top flop down.  “What are you interested in, anyway?”

“Not that,” Victus said, definitively.  He sunk into the lotus position on his mat, prepared to re-energize himself with a half hour of meditation.  “Now, go have your fun.”

Victus tried his best to meditate, but Lucas’ question had given him a heroic case of monkey-mind.  No matter what he attempted to concentrate on, his mind kept returning to those five words.  What was he interested in?

***

Twenty-nine minutes later, Lucas pushed his way back into their quarters, looking far more fit than the last time he’d entered.  “Whew!” he said, expressively.  “That’s what I call a workout!”

Other than opening his eyes, Victus didn’t move a muscle. “I’m glad you had fun,” he said.

Lucas looked dissatisfied. “Yeah, well,” he shuffled back and forth.  “It would be better if she wasn’t always asking about you and whether you need anything.  That sort of throws me off my game.  Why don’t you sock it to her?  At least once, you know?  Hit her with the rhythm stick, so she can get it out of her system.”

“Because I don’t want her.” Victus said, implacably.

Lucas grinned. “Trust me - you do want her.  It’s fantastic!”

“I assure you, I have no interest in Pearli.”

“Why not?  I’ve seen your balls often enough to know you still got ‘em, so put ‘em to good use!” Victus had no reply, which made Lucas shake his head sadly.   “Getting laid on a regular basis is the best thing about being varius, and you ignore it like it’s some deadly plague, or something.”  He shook his head, sadly.  “You figure it out, I’m taking a shower.”

“Good,” Victus said, closing his eyes to slits again.  “You smell like a poodle.”  He knew that Lucas was annoyed with him, but it was hardly the first time that had happened and he ignored it.  He tried to let his mind rest, but the sounds of Lucas getting ready for his shower shattered his tranquility. 

Eventually he was forced to admit that the answer to Lucas’s question was not to be found in meditation and contemplation.  His father had often told him that the most reliable path to answering life’s most troubling questions was through direct confrontation. The most troubling aspect of Victus’ life was currently taking a shower ten feet away, and he intended on confronting it.

Victus abandoned his attempts at meditation and walked into the bathroom.  After the first week the two hadn’t bothered with privacy in the bathroom, coming and going as dictated by their needs.  They would close the door if taking care of something obnoxious, but other than that, either had free access. 

Lucas was soaping himself up inside the shower stall, eyes squeezed shut against the stinging shampoo.  Victus examined his student carefully, searching for ...what?  He realized that he was looking for signs of duplicity in the man’s body language, for telltale signs which would give away his true intent.  But that was not sane.  What possible deception could be accomplished in the shower? There was hidden intent in the room, and it suddenly seemed clear that the issue lay not with Lucas but with Victus himself.

Victus felt a huge hole open up inside himself.  His gaze had been fixed on a spot roughly in the middle of Lucas’s chest for an eternity before he shook himself free of his ruminations and noticed that the other man had stopped moving.   The Kenzine’s eyes shot up to lock with his student’s.  He cringed with anticipation that Lucas would be disturbed by this lapse in propriety, but the man’s face was a study in open acceptance.  “What?” he asked, the corners of his mouth quirking down in a frown.  “Did the old pussbag call already?”

Victus thanked whatever gods watched over man that he’d already removed the spying devices.  “Stop it!” he thundered, his voice echoing off of the tiled walls. “I’ve told you a hundred times never to say things like that!” 

Lucas stood still in the shower, water dripping off him, stunned by Victus’ outburst.  The Kenzine had never so much as raised his voice, but now there seemed to be so much passion, so much uncontrolled fury behind his words that Lucas was left with his mouth hanging open.  He watched silently as the other man walked out of the room, and came back a moment later holding a quartet of what looked like small marbles on the end of strings.

“Ever since you arrived I’ve been warning you to watch your mouth, but you don’t listen.”  He held his fist up to eye level, where Lucas could get a good look at what he was holding. “Do you know what these are?” Victus growled.  The aghast look on Lucas’s face told him that explanation would not be necessary. “Everything you say, everything you do in here has been monitored.  And guess who’s been listening?”   

Lucas shook his head minutely.  “You don’t know,” Victus answered for him.  “Was it Leland?   Or maybe Max, or the negin himself?   Whoever it is has been listening to you for the past who knows how long, as you rant and rave and make a fool of yourself, and push us both closer to the grave.”  He stopped for a moment, then asked, “What about Pearli?  Do you think she’s above currying favor with the negin by feeding him tidbits of information about you?”

Under his fur, Lucas paled.  What had he told Pearli?  Even if he hadn’t told her anything, he’d certainly said enough inside the confines of his own bedroom to incriminate him on a dozen counts of seditious behavior.  The realization made his ears lower in guilt and shame.  He watched as Victus turned and stalked out of the bathroom, looking more dangerous than ever and swinging the door shut behind him.

Absent now of all levity, Lucas finished cleaning and drying himself.  His movements were mechanical and efficient, as they had been when he had to accomplish the same task when on military maneuvers.  He expected there to be a tongue lashing waiting for him when he emerged into the bedroom, but instead found only an empty room and a note on the desk, weighted down by Victus’ comm.  “You are in charge of the negin’s security for the next two days.  Leland, Max and Negin Mal are all aware of my absence.  Comport yourself with dignity.” 

Lucas’s ears folded back against his head, awash in unpleasant feelings.  This was inevitable, he supposed.  Victus was going to leave eventually, so he might as well get used to bearing the yoke of responsibility, right?   But what had he done to drive the Kenzine away?   Had he angered the man to the point where he would not return?

Feeling unexpectedly confused, Lucas sat on the bed for a few minutes before pulling on his uniform and making himself ready for work.