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"In war, practice dissimulation, and you will succeed."
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The trackers had sent her an image of the Recurrence in an FTL but now, standing here, Kalique gets chills. It's uncanny how similar this girl looks but her expression, her lack of knowledge, it strikes Kalique as wrong. Her mother's face should never show such gratitude or confusion; it's unseemly and Kalique does not like it one little bit.
She shows Jupiter the memorial room, watches as it starts to hit Jupiter that this is all real and that she's in way over her head. The RegeneX pool is much the same; Kalique goes under with wrinkles and grey hair, comes up fresh and youthful. She doesn't have to look in a mirror to tell what differences the RegeneX made, not with all her millennia of experience and the sensation of tight, healthy skin across her cheekbones and under her eyes.
"A long time ago," Kalique says, "someone figured out how to replace deteriorating cells with new ones. Today, it's as easy as changing a light bulb."
Kalique expects a comment about light bulbs, something Titus might say if he was feeling playful, and for a moment it looks as if Jupiter might indulge in that attitude. But then the girl tilts her head to one side and asks, "What is it made of? I've heard that the House of Abrasax seeded the earth. What kind of seeds, and what do you do to them, to end up with something that does -- that?"
"It's a long process," Kalique says, urging Jupiter closer to the pool. "We have quite a few refineries scattered around the 'verse for the specific purpose of turning our seeds into RegeneX. It's an arcane process, really -- and I don't say that lightly. Balem, my older brother, is very protective of both the process and the final result; he wouldn't take kindly to my joking about it, or referring to it as magic instead of science. Now," she says, and claps her hands together. "You should try it."
"Oh, I couldn't," Jupiter says, but Kalique's watching the girl closely and doesn't miss how her eyes flicked to the pool. "I don't have any clothes and you haven't even told me why you kidnapped me."
Kalique laughs, says, "Why, I want to take you to Orous so that you can claim your seal! The trackers who brought you here were originally hired by Balem to kill you, so at least they saw the sense of a higher pay-out."
Jupiter's eyes widen, then narrow in quick succession. "Why do they want to kill me?"
"Because right now," Kalique says, "there are three Abrasax primaries -- heirs -- who have split out the inheritance from our mother. But you're her Recurrence and she left you quite a lot in her will. Titus, my younger brother, and I don't have much worth squabbling over but Balem can be --" She pauses there, tries to decide how to finish. The gleam in Jupiter's eyes is so much like Seraphi's at this moment, easy to see but impossible to read. Kalique always had trouble reading her mother's more subtle emotions but she knows Balem all too well. He's going to go positively insane when he comes face-to-face with this slip of a girl. "-- possessive."
"Possessive," Jupiter says.
Kalique watches as the girl shivers, her eyes going distant, and bites back a smirk. This could turn out to be much, much easier than she'd ever dreamt.
"You should try it," Kalique says again, this time her voice modulated slightly lower, softer. "After all, you want to look your best when you go to claim your inheritance, don't you?"
"I -- I guess," Jupiter says. She's frowning, and Kalique leans forward, draws her thumb across Jupiter's forehead, smoothing out the wrinkles. "Does it hurt?"
Kalique smiles and starts to unbutton Jupiter's shirt. "Not one bit. Promise."