The Soulmate Curse

FENNEL (for change) - Part 2

Ares' alarm gently tugged Finn out of a completed REM cycle. She woke up and stared at the ceiling, letting her brain piece together her last dream before it fragmented away to nothing. She shut her eyes, grabbed the pillow next to her, covered her face with it and screamed as loud as she could into it. Despite how hard she tried to convince herself that she was over Zhen, her subconscious didn't give a damn. In her dreams, Zhen was hers. In every way. Extremely frustrated was an understatement of what she was currently feeling.

"Are you alright, Finn?"

"I'm fine, Ares," she said. "Can you set up a cold shower please?"

"Yes, Finn," the AI acquiesced. "Finn, you have a call coming in."

"Who is it?"

"Darren, from the moon," said Ares.

Finn sat up, suddenly energised. "Put him through."

"Finn, sorry for the early call..."

"Yes."

"What?"

"Yes, I'll come to the moon," said Finn, having made her mind up. She needed to get her mind off Zhen. A trip to the moon ought to do it. "I'll do your PR stunt."

"Oh, okay. Um, yeah. That's great!" said Darren. "When were thinking of coming over?"

"Tonight?"

Darren laughed. "Very funny. I like the enthusiasm. There's a supply launch about five weeks away. What do you think?"

"That works."

"Perfect. I can't wait to finally meet you."

Finn hang up and walked into the shower. She screamed when the cold water hit her. She didn't change it though. This was good. Woke her right up. Out of the shower, she realised that it wasn't enough. Her thoughts were slipping back to the dream. Back to Zhen. Since she couldn't yet take her trip to the moon, she needed another distraction. Something that would keep her mind busy.

"Ares?"

"Yes, Finn?"

"Please call Jesse."

The autonomous cab didn't get her all the way to Jesse's neighbourhood. Too many autonomous cars had been captured and dismembered in the Outskirts, that place just outside the city, where most of the "disqualified" lived. So, they got to the edge of the area under the protection of the local Over Watch Station. The OWS, unlike the police, responded to small, misdemeanour behaviour, each station looking over small pockets of the larger, general communities spanning across the city. Finn chewed on this fact for a few moments as she considered walking into the Outskirts and away from the protective circle of the nearest OWS once she was out of the cab.

The streets she walked along were as anxiety inducing as she'd imagined it would be. She tried to keep calm. Tried to walk like she knew this place and wasn't following the directions being shared through her discreetly worn cochlear buds. She did have some weapons in her backpack jacket, but Finn was a runner, not a fighter. She got to the warehouse relatively safely. She'd attracted some attention, but they didn't seem overtly unfriendly. More curious than anything. In fact, she was certain that more than a few were hinting at having a close encounter of the very friendly, biblical kind.

It took a few minutes for the door to the warehouse to open. Nervously waiting outside, feeling the stares from the shadows, Finn was starting to think she was in the wrong place. When it did slide open, the other side of the door was too dark to see what she would be walking into. Finn also hadn't heard anything from Jesse for a while. She just had to hope she wasn't walking into an organ harvesting lab, which was a possibility when it came to neighbourhoods that housed citizens who couldn't qualify for Universal Basic Income for whatever, sometimes unsavoury, reason. Her first step into the darkness tested everything in her.

"This blade to your throat is sharp enough to split a strand of hair," said a voice in the dark.

Finn's back was against a wall. Someone slightly taller than her was close enough for them to share breath. That blade they mentioned felt heavy against her throat. Her hands were pinned in place by her assailant's body. Finn could barely convince her lungs to work through the dread creeping up inside her. She was afraid to swallow, let alone say a single word, with that sharp blade drawn right up to her skin.

"I'll ask you one question," said the voice again. "Answer truthfully and I let you go."

Finn gave the simplest hum in answer, feeling the blade press even closer.

"Is gender a social construct?"

Finn's brain stopped for a moment. What? She'd totally rather be mugged than answer a politically charged question, especially that question. The blade was pulled a sliver away from her throat, a clear indication that this wasn't a hypothetical question. Given the space to, Finn gulped.

"If it is just a social construct, that would include every gender type, including the non-binary," Finn whispered. "Then what does it matter?"

The blade came closer, this time close enough to nick her skin. She could feel the drop of blood slide down her throat.

"Is that the answer you really want to give here?"

The blade moved away again. Finn closed her eyes and tried to keep her voice steady. "It might not be the right answer, but it's my answer."

The assailant completely moved away, freeing Finn. She reached up to her throat. There was a pinprick of pain, but it didn't seem like the wound was too deep. The lights suddenly came on!

"I like her, Jess."

Before she turned to her assailant, Finn reached into one of the pockets of her backpack jacket. It wasn't a pocket she used often. The first aid pack was incredibly well stocked, yet ingeniously packed to fit in a fist sized box. Plenty of the objects inside it were 4D printed, but she just needed one of the beads that held a drop of liquid plaster. She broke a small bead and smeared the liquid onto the blade's cut. The bead capsule was biodegradable, so she just tossed it in the nearest worm bin. She brought her focus back to the one who'd held the blade against her throat.

"What the hell was that?" Finn was almost shouting.

Jesse came forward to examine the bloody drops on Finn's shirt. "Sorry about Zac."

"He could have killed me," said Finn, following Jesse through the warehouse.

"If I'd really wanted to, I would have," said Zac, walking behind Finn. She turned to face him.

Zac was half a head taller than her and built like a truck. His face was covered in a thick dark brown beard and his hair was cut short on the sides and perfectly coiffed at the top. He was handsome, in a rugged sort of way. He smiled in that sort of way that made Finn think he'd won a number of ladies, or men, with that smile. Yeah, definitely a lady killer smile. She decided to take that as an apology and turned back to face Jesse.

"Do you have the information you promised, Jesse?" Finn asked.

"Is that all you'll ever want from me, Finn?" they said, before walking right up to Finn and planting the softest kiss on her lips.

For a moment, Finn was speechless. Her mind wiped blank. She closed her eyes and savoured the moment.

"Finn?"

She opened her eyes again to find Jesse staring at her in concern.

"That was my first kiss," said Finn, immediately feeling the heat climb her cheeks. She'd thought about it for so long, envisioned how it would be, planned her reaction in extreme detail. She'd always imagined it would have been with Zhen. But suddenly, little to none of that mattered when it had finally happened.

"What!" Jesse was mortified. "I'm so sorry, Finn. I didn't know. If I did..."

Finn cut her off with her second kiss. This one lasted a touch longer.

"Don't be sorry," whispered Finn, their facesstill close. "It was perfect."