The Lone W.O.L.F. Saga: Euphoria

Hey everybody, despite its ups and downs, I hope the new year has been treating you all well enough? If you have not heard, I am working on my third book called Tapestry of Time, a direct sequel to my first book, Harvest Moon: Lunar Tides. In the meantime, I am also expanding on some of the short stories found in my second book, Traversing The Void, and I figured I would share some of them on here as installments on a periodic basis throughout the year. As a thank you to all who have supported me in my writing endeavors, I hope you all enjoy! First up on the list is a continuation of The Lone W.O.L.F. short story:

Euphoria

It was on Vex’s third attempt to contact Linda when she answered. Her image popped up on his holoview.

“What is it?” The young bounty hunter greeted him, curtly.

“Oh, for the love of-! Have you ever heard of modesty?” Vex looked away and rubbed his brow, embarrassed, after he noticed she was shirtless and without a bra.

“They’re just tits, don’t be such a dinosaur about it,” Linda responded but her holographic image adjusted itself shortly afterwards, and displayed her visage only from the neck up. “What do you want?”

“Am I correct to assume that you are finished with your little visit to Sisyphus Penitentiary?”

“No. I figured I would stay for a while and perform a striptease for the guards.”

“Where are you?” Vex asked, as he ignored Linda’s sarcastic remark.

“I am with Barry.”

“How much longer will you be there? Because we got a new job waiting for us, an important one. So, I need all hands on deck!”

“You two can’t do it yourself?”

“Linda!” Vex’s patience began to wear thin.

“Is that any way to speak to your captain, helmsman?”

“I might start treating you as a captain right when you start acting like one!”

“Have it your way, I will return as soon as I am done here in Euphoria.” Linda shrugged and her holographic image disappeared from view. 

“Why do I put up with this crap? If I still had my stripes and she was a recruit…” Vex leaned back in his chair at the helm. For a while he simply stared out into the inky void of space outside of the vessel’s windows.

“Did you get a hold of her yet, Vex?” A voice chimed in over the ship’s intercom and broke into the helmsman’s thoughts.

“Yeah,” Vex replied to the ship’s tech expert and engineer. “She is going to be a while, though. But while we are waiting for her, Hack, I need you to dig up some background information on this new job. I do not want to go into this unprepared like we normally do.”

“Aye, aye,” Hack responded in his typical nonchalant manner. “You want fries with that too?”

“Shut up and get it done, will you?” Vex switched off the intercom with a swift flick of his finger and grumbled to himself “Jackasses, the both of them!

***

“Sounds important, maybe you should get dressed?” A young man, attired only in a pair of boxer briefs, commented. He sat next to Linda on a bed covered in fine linen and a ruffled comforter.

“They can wait, Barry.” Linda had switched off her communicator watch and stretched out on her stomach next to him, naked, and with her back exposed. “I would rather you finish massaging me first.”

“As you wish, anything for my favorite client.” Barry squeezed some body oil into his palm and proceeded to rub it on to her skin.

“I bet you say that to all the naked ladies who find themselves in your bed?”

“Only to the one’s who get my special discount because I like them so much.”

Linda could not help but crack a little smile.

“By the way, what was that tune you were whistling earlier? It sounded familiar.”

“I don’t know,” a low moan escaped Linda’s lips when she felt the gentle pressure he applied to the tension in her back muscles. “It’s been stuck in my head ever since I left Sisyphus.”

“You are always so worked up after you visit that place, maybe stay away from there for a while?”

Linda remained quiet for a moment.

“They are going to be releasing him soon.”

“Damien?”

“Yeah.”

Barry paused for a moment to reapply some more oil to his hand.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” Linda exhaled in frustration. “I could file an objection with the parole board but I’m sure it will be useless. He was only in there for slinging some slade and I still have no proof he killed my brother.”

“What about the footage from that night? Can’t you resubmit it to make your case?”

Captain Black frowned.

“‘The image on it was not clear enough to be admissible in the first place. It placed too much doubt in the minds of the jury.”

“I wish there was more I could do to help…” Barry gave her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. Linda turned around and placed a hand on his cheek.

“You don’t demand anything of me or resent my grief. That is enough for me. Thank you.” She sat up and gave him a kiss. “I better get going before Vex bursts a blood vessel.”

She rose from the bed to get dressed, while Barry wiped the massage oil from his hands on a towel draped on the headboard. He remained seated on the mattress and switched on the television set mounted on his bedroom wall.

“Have you heard the latest news, by the way?” Barry asked, after he snuck a glance at Linda before she slipped into her jeans.

“What news?”

“Panorama Biotech announced yesterday that they were going to clone themselves an alien.”

“What? How?”

“They are going to use the DNA sample they found on Mars back in the 21st century, apparently. Something about using gene editing technology to rebuild the microbial material into a viable sample.”

“I thought they already did something like that decades ago?” Linda mused while she slipped on her T-shirt.

“You are probably thinking about the 3-D model they printed out. That was only a visual representation of what the lifeform might look like, after they had finished sequencing the genetic material. But it looks like they are going for the real deal this time around.”

“You are such a nerd,” Linda joked. She grabbed her jacket from the floor and was about to leave, when she felt Barry’s hand pull her back to him until she found herself seated in his lap.

“Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Only because you say so,” the captain gave him another kiss before she left his room and stepped out into the bustling passageways of the space station Euphoria.