Page 89 of Red Flag, Green Light

“You have strong feelings about piracy?You?”

He turns a look on me. “Now, whatever is that supposed to mean?”

“Just seems like another crime to add to your checkered record.”

“Pirates pirate creative content, which makes it infamously difficult to gain a footing in an already saturated business.Stealing work from true creators and passing it off as either free or their own in places where it’s difficult to remove can destroy chances for artists to make a living. In our current climate, robbery is aplenty, and even if we say that the information robbed isn’t stored in a database for reshuffling, it is still stored asknowledge. Decades of real people and real learning get broken down and put in a machine that spits out nightmare fuel just passable enough to be worth the cut costs and instant gratification.”

“You’re talking about AI.”

He snaps, “Of course I’m talking about—” He cusses a modest stream of swears, then his nostrils flare as his chest fills. “It’s little more than socially-accepted, and even promoted, cyber pirates…” He mutters, “It’s aDoctor Whoepisode heading charmingly toward proud declarations of athirty percent human workforce. Therefore,” he grits, “no pirates.”

“No pirates,” I repeat. “Sorry.”

Cutting his fingers through his hair, he releases the tension in his limbs and rubs his neck. “No, I’m sorry. I know, ultimately, life will adapt and creativity will persist. It’s just theadaptionpart paired with the frustration of a society on the brink of change. I don’t much care for change. I prefer familiarity and predictability in those around me.”

Same.

“Is that why you like me?” I ask. “You know I’m going to stay home and read a book, all day, every day?”

“Except on shopping day.” He rises, smiling down at me. “And, apparently, right now.” Like a dark, alluring prince coaxing me into his wicked domain, he offers me a hand. “Come.”

“Into the unknown? With you?”

His smile stretches.

And I place my hand in his.

The last thing I expect is for him to take me out his back door and into a clear, crisp night. Thick cypress trees barricade this space from the view of my own backyard, so I’ve never before known that the Rogue brothers…have a trampoline.

I cannot, for the life of me, see Jove climbing through the net and bouncing around, so this must be Mars’s. Mars’s trampoline.

A giggle escapes.

“Oh, hush,” he murmurs, helping me within the screened world. “Everyone should have a trampoline.”

With the sky open above me and a slew of blankets and pillows piled on the jump mat before me, I have to agree. Following Mars down into the cozy nest, I say, “It’s like a spaceship.”

“Exactly.” He wraps a soft blanket around my shoulders.

“We’re burrowing, like Ginger.”

Eyes catching starlight and gleaming like uranium, Mars chuckles, flops down, and stretches out. With a yawn, he peers at the eternal expanse above us, the inky dark speckled in glitter.

Nothing looked like this in the city. In the city, lights played in a different way. Night unfurled like a black canvas for the buildings and streetlights and windows.

I never hated it. I thought it was beautiful. I loved the skylines and the architecture. Knowing people planned, designed, and built everything I could see always filled me with a sense of grandeur.

But this?

I lie down beside Mars and let it all consume me.

Thishits different.

“Fridays are date nights?” I ask, sending my voice out into the buzzing world cocooned in darkness.

“So Jove says. Who am I—younger brother that I am, fewer days upon this earth—to suggest otherwise?”

“Jupiter’s word is law, yes. You are correct.”

---