Blend, p.1
Blend, page 1
BLEND
Book 1: The Rogues of Teton
By
Frank Kennedy
Dedicated to those who are so lucky to witness the birth of legends
c. 2026 by Frank Kennedy
All rights reserved
ASIN: B0FX19GK28
To my amazing readers:
Introduction
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1
ARLISS
THE SERVOS INSIDE his fingernails twitched – spiking anxiety often caused glitches. Arliss Dubai stared at the bizarre cards he held, their features morphing into incoherent patterns.
“Having trouble keeping up, blue boy?”
Officer Ram Trent stretched his crooked smile across his face as he rearranged his own hand.
Five years of this bastard’s special attention, and he still needs one last game to torment me, Arliss thought.
“Your rules seem ... flexible, Ram.”
Arliss laid down a card pulsing with the orange glow of sunrise, something he hadn’t seen in five years. Ram’s widening grin confirmed the wrong move.
“That’s going to cost you.” Ram slapped down a black card that consumed the orange one in a dark vortex. “Another mark against your behavior record.”
As if any of that matters now. Arliss maintained a stoic face, though his hazel eyes narrowed.
“Fascinating game. Did you make it up yourself, or does sadism come with an instruction manual these days?”
Ram’s expression hardened.
“Watch that mouth, Dubai. You remain under my authority until this transport lands.”
The cards in Arliss’s hands continued their maddening dance of colors and symbols. He recognized none – not that Ram bothered explaining the rules. He designed the game as a power play. Standard operating procedure.
Ram drummed his fingers on the scratched metal table between them, each tap echoing with deliberate menace in the cramped transport cabin. The lights above cast harsh shadows across his weathered face, highlighting the cruel satisfaction in his eyes.
“Your play, criminal.”
The last word rolled off his tongue with relish, as if savoring a favorite dessert.
Play along. Count the minups. Almost home.
Arliss’s enhanced vision cataloged the swirling patterns that seemed to mock him. After a moment’s consideration, he selected a blue card matching his own skin tone. Its surface rippled like liquid mercury beneath his fingertips.
“I assume this means I lose again?”
His servo-enhanced fingers held the card delicately, already expecting its destruction. The familiar hum of his internal synthetics provided a soothing counterpoint to Ram’s oppressive presence.
“You always were a quick study.”
Ram’s lips curled into a predatory smile as he laid down a card pulsing with dark energy. The moment it touched Arliss’s blue card, both erupted in a shower of digital confetti that scattered across the table’s surface before dissolving into nothing.
Ram added: “Though not quick enough to avoid Rogue.”
Just a little longer, Arliss reminded himself. Then I never have to see this walking penis again. His servos adjusted his posture, preventing him from slumping in defeat despite exhaustion.
“Another round?” Ram’s voice dripped with false courtesy.
“How could I refuse such a generous offer?”
The sarcasm slipped out before Arliss could catch it, but he kept his tone light enough to avoid Ram’s wrath. The guard chuckled and dealt another hand of the nonsensical cards.
Memories of their countless interactions at Rogue 19 flickered through Arliss’s mind. Ram stood outside his cell during those first months, watching him with that same rapacious smile. The whispered comments about Meera during solitary inspections. The surveillance photos of the Dubai family that Ram displayed in his third year; a threat wrapped in a veneer of casual conversation.
The ship lurched, harder this time. Ram’s cards scattered across the table as warning lights bathed the cabin in crimson. A mechanical voice crackled through hidden speakers: “Atmospheric entry in progress. All passengers secure positions.”
What a shame.
“Looks like our game’s over, Ram.”
Arliss pushed back from the table, relief flooding through his circuits.
Ram’s hand shot to his weapon.
“We’re not finished until I say we’re finished.”
The ship bucked again. Ram’s fingers wrapped around his shock baton, but Arliss noticed the guard’s other hand white-knuckling the table’s edge.
Not so confident when you’re not in control, are you?
Ram gathered the fallen cards with shaking hands.
“One more game. Winner takes all.”
“Takes what?” Arliss’s optical servos tracked the guard’s elevated heart rate, sweat beading at his temples. “You’ve already added enough urns to keep me here until next century.”
“Your freedom.” Ram dealt five cards, his movements jerky. “Win this hand, and you walk. Lose...” His thin lips stretched into a familiar sneer. “Rogue 19 misses you already.”
Arliss picked up the cards. The symbols writhed and twisted, but this time something clicked in his enhanced vision. Patterns emerged from the chaos – mathematical sequences his servos recognized from their base programming.
“Well?” Ram’s voice cracked.
Arliss arranged his cards with deliberate precision.
“I finally understand the rules.”
They change with every hand.
The guard’s face fell when he saw the sequence. The cards pulsed with golden light, illuminating the cabin like a miniature sun.
“Impossible.” Ram’s shock baton clanked on the floor. “You cheated. Your enhancements …”
“My enhancements?” Arliss stood, his chair scraping against metal. “The ones that let me see the trim code you embedded in these cards? The same code you’ve been using to rig this game since we left Rogue?” He leaned forward, voice dropping. “Those enhancements?”
Ram’s hand fumbled for his fallen weapon, but the ship chose that moment to hit another pocket of turbulence. The guard pitched forward, face smashing into the table with a satisfying crunch.
Arliss gathered the cards, tucking them into his pocket. Evidence. Proof of Ram’s little game, along with every “extra urn” he’d tried to add to an innocent man’s sentence. His servos hummed with satisfaction as he watched Ram struggle to stem his bleeding nose.
“Thanks for teaching me the rules.” Arliss smiled, his teeth gleaming. “It’s been educational.”
Ram’s eyes never left Arliss’s face, a quiet resignation but far from the look of a defeated man. Arliss wasn’t surprised when Ram teed up another taunt.
“Almost time for your grand reentry into society.” Ram’s lips twisted. “Though I use that term loosely for your kind.”
Arliss’s jaw stiffened, but he kept a flat expression. Five years of practice made it automatic now.
“I appreciate your concern for my reintegration.” Arliss flexed his fingers beneath the skin graft. “I’ll be sure to mention your rehabilitative card games in my memoir.”
Ram’s hand charged out, grabbing Arliss’s wrist. The guard’s fingers dug into the spot where flesh met synthetics.
“One last piece of advice, Dubai. Watch that smart mouth of yours out there. Not everyone appreciates your ... unique sense of humor.”
Says the man who finds humor at the end of a shock baton.
Arliss met Ram’s gaze, remembering the countless times in the lunar mines when Ram whispered Meera’s name, about how the bastard still visited Vandress during his leave rotations to keep tabs on the woman he believed should have been his. Five years of that psychological slag had taught Arliss when to fight and when to endure.
“Noted, Ram. I’ll work on my delivery.”
The transport banked hard, breaking through cloud cover. Through the viewport, the sprawling megalopolis of Vandress came into view. The gleaming spires of the ten Megas pierced the thin smog like accusing fingers pointed at the sky, their polished surfaces reflecting the low, fading sunlight that struggled to penetrate the haze. His stomach knotted at the sight.
The city he’d both dreaded and longed for spread beneath him: A chaotic patchwork of light and shadow. He saw Sinquin, his home Mega, in the distance. Its familiar silhouette housed the Servo District where dozens of levels of stacked housing units and exposed infrastructure resembled an open wound amid Vandress’s architecture marvels. The whine of the transport’s engines harmonized with the emotions churning inside him: Anticipation mingled with apprehension; the taste of freedom tinged with uncertainty.
The transport’s landing gear engaged with a hydraulic whine. Ram grabbed Arliss’s shoulder and steered him toward the exit hatch as they entered the spaceport.
“Welcome home, criminal. Try not to end up back in my care.”
“I’ll have to deny myself that pleasure.”
With a final shudder, the transport settled onto the landing pad. Steam hissed from cooling vents as the hatch cycled open. Ram gave Arliss a none-too-gentle shove through the exit.
“After you,” Ram said before adding in a deeper tone: “This is not goodbye, blue boy.”
Arliss stepped out into the deep red, fading sunlight, his optical implants adjusting to winnow the glare. The weight of Teton’s gravity settled over him like a lead blanket after five years on Rogue. His servos recalibrated.
The gloam of dusk hovered over the spaceport. He arrived at the tail end of three-urn daylight. The Shade Cycle had begun; soon the sun – not visible as a firm disc but merely a diffused blanket of red and orange haze – would sneak above the horizon for an urn a day. The Cycle would last four months, but Arliss welcomed even this tiny gift after subterranean life on the planet’s largest moon.
His first breath of unfiltered air in half a decade filled his lungs with the acrid taste of home – scrubbed oxygen laced with industrial pollutants and tinted with the lingering sweetness of atmospheric processors and the weather shields.
Freedom at last. More or less.
A dozen armed security officers formed a half-circle around the landing zone, weapons not drawn but ready if called upon. A pair of protesters greeted his arrival, which he naively assumed had not been made public. After all this time, why would anyone care?
They held up two banners.
“HOME = HUMAN” read one. “NO BLENDS ON OUR STREETS” declared another. The symbols on their cloaks told Arliss everything he needed to know. The Spiral Wind emblems stitched on their shoulders gleamed with three interlocking counterclockwise spirals. Below them, the Broken Circle marked them as followers of the most conservative interpretation of the Breath. Small weather marks dotted their collars.
Pure Breathers, Arliss thought as his servos tensed. This is going to be interesting.
After an aggravating interview with Customs, Arliss stepped through the spaceport’s main terminal. He scanned the crowded space, filtering through faces and body signatures until …
There!
Meera’s dark hair streaked with more silver than he remembered. And Kip – stars above, how his boy had grown. The yellow streaks in his son’s black hair were new, as were the oversized earrings that marked him as part of the latest youth phase Arliss didn’t recognize.
Meera spotted him first. Her amber eyes widened as she broke into a run, shouldering past a group of startled passengers.
“Arliss!”
She crashed into him, arms wrapping tight around his chest. The familiar scent of machine oil plus that flowery soap she always used overwhelmed his senses. His arms found their place around her, muscle memory unchanged despite the passage of time.
“Meercat,” he whispered, using the nickname she reserved only for him.
Kip hung back, hands shoved deep in his pockets. His blue freckles had darkened with age. Their eyes met across the terminal floor.
“Dad.”
His son’s voice had deepened, caught between childhood and something else.
“You got tall.”
Arliss forced his voice to remain steady despite the surge in his emotional regulators.
“Mom’s been feeding me pretty good.” Kip scuffed his shoe against the floor. “Plus, you know, growing and stuff.”
They spoke on deepstream calls every three months, but he only saw them above the shoulders.
Meera pulled back just enough to study Arliss’s face, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw as if checking that he was real.
“They didn’t tell us anything until this morning.”
“I know.” He squeezed her hand. “They love the games.”
Kip took a half-step forward, then stopped. Arliss recognized the war between wanting a hug and maintaining that careful teenage distance. He waited, letting his son make the choice.
“Your hair’s different,” Kip said finally.
“Prison barbers aren’t known for their style.” Arliss ran a hand through his fire-red crop. “Unlike those streaks you’re sporting. Yellow’s a bold choice.”
A ghost of a smile crossed Kip’s face and its many blue freckles.
“Yeah, well. Mom only freaked out a little.”
“I did not freak out,” Meera protested, but her laugh carried years of stored tension breaking free.
The moment shattered when a security officer approached, hand resting on his weapon.
“Processing complete, Blend. Move along.”
Arliss strained, servos in his back whirring in silence as they prepared for potential conflict. Rogue 19 honed his instincts for trouble.
“We’re just leaving,” Meera said, her hand finding Arliss’s.
The officer’s gaze lingered on Kip’s blue-freckled face, then flicked to Arliss’s sky-blue features.
“Make it fast.”
Arliss nodded, swallowing the retort that rose to his lips. Not worth it. Not with Meera and Kip here.
They gathered the single bag containing Arliss’s meager possessions and headed toward the exit. The protesters had moved inside now, their signs held high as they chanted the usual gibberish about purity and natural order. Arliss shook his head.
A true credit to Tets everywhere.
“When did it get this bad?” Arliss kept his voice low.
Meera’s fingers tightened around his.
“After the election. The Pure Breath faction gained three seats on the Unified Council.”
“They’re everywhere now,” Kip added.
A security checkpoint loomed ahead – one Arliss didn’t remember from before prison. A sign declared:
BLEND VERIFICATION REQUIRED
“You’ve got to be slagging me,” Arliss muttered. “I just went through Customs.”
“It’s standard now,” Meera whispered. “Just stay calm.”
The security officer at the checkpoint, a heavyset woman with the Breath’s semi-circular medallion visible at her throat, gestured impatiently.
“Blend, step forward.”
Arliss released Meera’s hand and approached.
“ID and release doc.”
He produced a thumb-sized credcard, which the woman examined with exaggerated scrutiny beneath a scanner.
“Remove your jacket and roll up your sleeves.”
Arliss complied, revealing the silver patterns where his mods interfaced with his flesh. The officer scanned them, her handheld beeping as it registered each servo.
“Turn around, hands against the wall.”
Breathe. Just breathe.
His jaw clenched as he assumed the position; muscle memory from prison made the posture routine.
The pat-down was thorough and humiliating, but not new. Arliss fixed his gaze on a spot on the wall, trying to ignore the stares of passing travelers.
“Clear,” the officer announced, sounding almost disappointed. “Move along.”
Arliss rejoined Meera and Kip, his face hiding the humiliation. Kip wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Let’s get home,” Meera said softly.
The tri-level public transport platforms at Unquin Mega bustled with evening commuters jumping on and off more than a dozen levtrains. As they boarded Red Six for Sinquin, Arliss noticed the subtle shifts: Passengers scattered, mothers pulled children closer, conversations dropped to whispers.
They found seats near the back. The compartment wasn’t crowded, but the empty space around them spoke volumes.
“Did you see the new atmospheric processors on the way in?” Meera asked, her voice artificially bright. “They finally upgraded the north sector.”
Arliss nodded, grateful for her attempt at normalcy. He hadn’t noticed but played along for harmony’s sake.
“They look more efficient. The air tastes ... different.”
“They added a new filtration system,” Kip said, his voice gaining a flicker of enthusiasm. “We learned about it at Ed Bank, if you can believe it.”
The boy’s words echoed Arliss’s own bitter memories. Kip had transferred to the Servo District Education Bank, a decision Arliss protested from prison – not that he had a say in the matter. Meera had pulled every string to get Kip into the Vandress City Unified System, which lasted all of a month. The fights and the taunting proved too much. She said Kip came home each night shattered and in tears.
Still, Arliss shuddered at the notion of his boy attending a school where resources for Blends and Patchies were an afterthought.
What kind of father am I?
He should have been there to guide Kip, to steer him through the rough bits, to teach him to fight for more than scraps.
“That’s good to hear, Kip,” he said, forcing a brittle smile. “Learning about new tech is important.”
