“Ahh, but…” Freya tapped her cheekbone.
“But what?” Victor said with his brow lowered.
“But what is it to be smart?” She pulled out a chair. With her torso against the backrest, she rested her forearms on top. “I’ll bet you could spell every word correctly, but can you put the words together in a way that makes people cry or laugh?”
“I’m not an artist, my strength isn’t creativity.”
“So, what’s your contribution? Sounds to me that your smartness is that of a computer, but we’ve got that covered.” Freya tapped at her wristband.
“I’m a genius!”
“That might be, but until you do something with that genius it’s not worth much, is it?”
Every one of us in the room was following their conversation, seeing Victor’s anger simmer.
“Not worth much?” Victor raised his chin and looked down his nose at Freya. “I was thirteen when I cracked the code and found a way to expand the growth of radio-trophic fungi. As you might know it’s the biggest weapon in cleaning up areas with leftover radiation. For centuries our scientists tried to optimize the speed with which the fungi grows and performs radio-synthesis. Over the last eighteen years, I’ve managed to propel the growth rate by more than seven hundred percent. I also found a way to triple the effectiveness of the fungi. Because of me, we have cleaned more new land in the last ten years then we did in the almost four hundred years before that. How is that for being useful?”
Freya leaned back and watched him before she spoke. “That is something to be proud of.” Looking around, she asked. “Did you all know this?”
We Europeans nodded but the Motlanders shook their heads.
“Let’s give Victor a round of applause. What he did was nothing less than spectacular.” Freya clapped her hands together and the rest of us followed. I watched her face to see if she was mocking him, but she seemed genuinely impressed.
Victor arched a brow and crossed his arms. “Thank you.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell us this before?” Freya asked him.
“Because I don’t like to brag.”
“Says the man who uses the word ‘genius’ as frequently as ‘hello.’”
“Are you done insulting me?” Victor grumped.
“For now.” Freya put the chair back where she’d taken it and looked untroubled by their confrontation.
Sounds from the outside made me look out the window and see the hunting party return carrying a deer between them. “They’re back.”
When some of the Motlanders got up to watch, I held up my arm. “Maybe it’s better if you stay where you are.”
“Oh.” Holly sunk back in her seat. “They caught something?”
“Yeah. They did!”
CHAPTER 8
Privacy
Mason
I’d hoped that going hunting with the others would be enough distraction that I wouldn’t think about Belle. Instead, the silence in the woods had given my mind time to bring up old memories of her transformation over the years.
She and I had never spent much time together, but with Aubri’s talkative nature, a simple “How is Belle?” had been enough to keep me updated.
I knew Belle had been categorized as a Practical Citizen between our second and third summit. That year she’d written my sister that she was afraid her government would ban her from going to the summits now. After all, everyone knew she was in no role to ever be a leader of the French people. But with the replacement of Oscar and Sophie, Belle had been allowed to stay as part of the French delegation.
It annoyed me that Jones had proposed to her even though it shouldn’t. Jones was my friend and it wasn’t like I could ever marry Belle myself. Squatting down, I rested my weapon on my knee and listened for the others.
We had split up, but I had my map that showed me their positions. Simon had stayed with Thor, but I couldn’t see his avatar. The French government limited the communication between their citizens and the rest of the world. Because of those restrictions, our electronic devices weren’t paired up. Simon appeared on the map merely as a red dot identifying a warm-blooded being. The rest of us were supposed to spread out and keep on a straight line, but from the avatars on the map, I could tell Aubri and Indiana were together.
Twenty years ago, their friendship wouldn’t have been allowed. Back when my mother was a teenager, no one but her family members were allowed to physically touch her. It was the historic triumph of Indiana’s adopted sister Raven that changed the strict rules. Against all odds she became the first female police officer in the Northlands. She couldn’t do her job if a colleague’s touching her was an automatic death sentence.
We Nmen still couldn’t touch women in general, but at least now there were exceptions. Physical contact was allowed if the woman gave her permission, which Aubri had done with Indiana. It was necessary for all the times they sparred together, and as one of Aubri’s protectors I didn’t have an issue with it since the Boulder family, although not blood related, were as close as cousins to us.
The others were moving again so I got up and walked slowly through the forest. The cracking sound of my boots on the snow was all I could hear.
A red dot showed up on the map telling us another warm-blooded being was close. To my disappointment I was the one furthest away. My breath hung in the air like a damp cloud and my nose felt cold as I kept walking. The others had seen the target too. I could tell because their avatars moved faster now.
It was Thor who shot the deer. Simon, who had never been on a winter hunt before, wouldn’t stop talking about how precise Thor’s shot had been while Indiana and I tied up the animal’s front legs and rigged a strong stick to help drag it out of the forest.
When we returned to the cabin, I took a warm shower and changed into comfortable clothing. The evening was uneventful, with everyone getting along for once, but as soon as it was time for bed, I was reminded that I would be sleeping next to Victor.
“You better not snore into my ear,” he warned me and got onto his side of the bed with overemphatic movements.
“What’s your problem?” I asked and leaned back against the window frame while letting the tiny tooth cleaner work in my mouth.
“I wanted to sleep in the living room. Do you know how rare it is for me to have some privacy lately?”
“Why? I thought you bragged one year that you had been rewarded with a single-person apartment.”
“I did, but then for some reason everyone in my apartment building had to take in a roommate.”
“Okay, that sucks, but you still have your own bedroom, right?”
“Wrong.”
“You don’t even have your own bedroom?” I gaped at him.
“For the past two months I’ve shared my room with a woman called Vivian. Her sector is being rebuilt because of mold issues and it could take another seven weeks before she can move out.”
“And you don’t like her?”
“She grinds her teeth while sleeping and she eats too much garlic, which makes her breath stink.”
I licked my front teeth feeling how fresh and smooth they were after the teeth cleaner had worked its magic. “So, no romance, I’m guessing?”