The Bedrock

by Shelbi Wescott

  She walked through her cousin’s home.

  A grand piano, a full walled aquarium to bridge the shift from sea to land, a room for lovers and for children, and for friends—and in an estate above—her own banquet-sized kitchen and dining room as if Amira would constantly find herself in need of that much shared space to entertain the myriad people who’d know about this sanctuary off the sea.

  Most of the rooms were bare and bland because the advanced technology meant an AR projector could turn her space into anything. Coordinating walls to your mood was an outdated trend on the Islands. So, Thea knew that the white walls would soon contain total murals or live captures. Art on the wall would shift according to atmosphere, or a person could ask the wall to display a landscape and it would willingly comply.

  “Tell me,” Thea said, hoping her next words would sound like a throwaway. “Will I find a place for me…”

  They didn’t.

  “That isn’t the vision for you,” Lesedi replied with a cryptic sigh.

  “Why can’t you show me the vision for me?” she asked.

  “I can’t show you what hasn’t been created,” Lesedi said. “This alone is enough. This alone could cost me—”

  “Right. I know.”

  “Fifteen years ago…the idea started. I’m a late cog in the machine, Thea. This was already happening before—”

  Thea thought back and pulled all available memories from that time. She was a child—all her early memories existed around then. Four or five. Growing up on the Islands. What did she know of her life from back then? What could she remember? Her mother, of course, her comforting face and familiar smell. The luxury of a big bed and warmth with the space to sprawl and run up and down the hallways.

  Sometimes, though, she dreamt of land.

  And she’d only been on land once. To Bermuda. Her mother took her to show her the plan. Thea tried to marry the two plans inside her brain and she had to stop thinking for a moment—she was anxious at the thought.

  “What is this? No. Spell it out. What is this?” Thea asked and turned to Lesedi, sad and irate and ready to take it out on her friend. After all, how long had the little tech girl played dumb while Thea didn’t know the build on land was taking place? And if she’d known earlier, could she have done anything to stop it?

  “His home,” Lesedi said with a matter-of-fact shrug. “He made himself a space off the Islands.”

  “He’s practically dead.”

  “How could that matter to him?” Lesedi asked dryly and Thea didn’t have a reply.

  “His entire plan was five-hundred years of healing—”

  “He didn’t feel like his Manhattan home interrupted the plan…”

  “Oh, for goodness sake,” Thea said and clenched her fists into tiny balls.

  Lesedi took a step back. “I don’t know everything, Thea. I only knew pieces…it was designed that way…”

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  “Because you’re right. Because I needed you to know what was happening. It’s the only time I had to share…”

  “I would’ve protected your life—” Thea started to say, but the look on her friend’s face told her the entire story. No, Lesedi didn’t want to put her life into Thea’s hands—she only imagined they had that type of friendship. In reality, Lesedi skirted around the edges of loyalty and kept Thea around out of panic for what it might look like if she suddenly disappeared from her life.

  The terror of seeing Thea arrive at her work unannounced was enough of a confirmation. Her friend walked a line between two worlds but soon she’d have to choose sides.

  It all made much more sense now: The trip to New New York inside the machine was a reactionary response to mitigate the aftermath of getting caught flying her true colors. Classic distraction. Except Lesedi underestimated that Thea was well versed in all techniques of manipulation and could not be moved by them.

  A pang of grief stabbed at Thea’s heart. That meant Lesedi was no longer a safe friend, and the loss was simultaneously piercing and expected.

  Her mother prepared her for this, however: The eventual disappointment of one’s friends. And she smoothed down the way for her to seek Blair as a replacement when the journey was rough. Immediately, Thea wanted to go home and tell her mother about everything she saw. She also wanted to lament Blair had been right her whole childhood—Thea only halfway believed her histrionic claims of patriarchal favoritism.

  But there it was in capital letters, marching across the whole of the world in a loud broadcast: Here are my beloveds. Gordy and his line will reign.

  Blair and her daughter will perish.

  Thea thought of her grandfather’s sneer: I did this.

  And yet, Poor Amira. She’d been destined as a child for this particular fate. Maverick James was ten years older, which meant as a young twenty-year-old he was promised endless wealth and the daughter of a royal in exchange for his soul to the devil.

  How could a child refuse that power?

  And why did Maverick care about the impressions he created? He had a one-way ticket off Apollo when the dust settled and the move was complete. The pieces began to slide into place.

  That was what he had to gain: Years of freedom in substitution for a life of bondage. But he’d be bonded in middle age, hardly something a twenty-year-old gave much thought to.

  Thea sat down on the ground inside her cousin Amira’s future bedroom. She was too tired to move and too tired to think. The art installation on the walls changed to deep blues and greens, a sad Van Gogh, but Thea could only bury her head in her hands and ponder all of the implications. She was confused but calm, and she knew the calm was temporary.

  “We should go,” Lesedi said, but the announcement didn’t do anything to rouse Thea into hopping back up on her feet. She wanted to stay in the sterile white rooms, the forested sanctuaries, the domed buildings powered by solar and wind and waves and all the things her grandfather had created as best he could all those years ago. Everything now evolved. What was once a place of industry and development was crippled by its limits: eight Islands for five-hundred years. The best and the brightest and the most powerful working toward a common goal. And humans, Thea realized, had short memories.

  “He doesn’t need the entire earth to heal?” Thea asked, scoffing at the oft-repeated reason for the destruction of modern society.

  “Rhetoric. It may not have always been…”

  “My God.”

  “He can get to St. Brenden or Paulina quickly…”

  “No one even needs to know they’re gone.”

  So. He was leaving his creation.

  Lesedi didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

  “When is it happening?” Thea asked.

  “Maverick and Gordy will gift it to Amira on her wedding night. It’ll be her last time on the Islands. They’ll spirit her away and Maverick’s home on Apollo will become a fortress…they’ll disappear. When needed, they reappear. It’s all outlined in the plan.”

  “She’ll hate it,” Thea said, but she knew her cousin was innocent in the scheming. There was no way Amira would willingly leave the Islands. “All the attendants? Who built this?”

  “Copia.”

  “Oh my god.”

  Thea seethed, and her heart-pounded while she fought off feeling light-headed. Her mother knew this was coming. They’d been brilliantly double-crossed. While Blair prepared to convince Huck of a different battle and position herself as the most suited to fight, her grandfather and uncle built a different world out of her reach. They changed the game on her and designed this Manhattan paradise with a coup in mind, ready for everyone to fall into their places because that’s what they always did.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Thea asked with genuine disdain.

  Her friend, maybe her only friend because it would have been easier to feign ignorance until the end, could only shrug. Inside the Augmented Reality Pods, Thea experienced life as her grandfather desired, and she kne
w everything he needed was still an illusion.

  Empty and without the people to occupy his dreams. No matter how large his structures grew, people were people.

  He could rename entire wings after fictional relationships and craft utopias to his specifications, but he was still asking others to join his vision…or die. Nothing forced was beautiful. It was effective, of course, but never beautiful. And as far as she could tell, she wasn’t the type to follow a vision or die.

  She wasn’t the dying type.

  “Come on,” Lesedi encouraged and she held out her hand. She picked Thea up from the ground and embraced her in a hug. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t ever given a—”

  “Don’t even think about it,” Thea replied with ease. But a seed of darkness grew and she filed an idea away, safe within the folds of her memory: Lesedi was disloyal—she’d been willing to keep secrets. Telling Thea when it was inevitable she’d learn it anyway was not bravery, it was the definition of cowardice. Also, Lesedi had a lot to lose. She’d designed the prison she’d be sent to if they discovered Thea got a sneak peek.

  Lesedi operated with predictable self-interest; she knew what to think about that, but she did know what to think of her grandfather.

  He was about to boost off his own islands and he’d created a slave army to make it possible. Which meant he was just as cunning, scheming, and self-serving as always. Even from his hospital bed, he schemed.

  Thea couldn’t wait to get out of the sticky, ridiculous AR suit and go tell her mother everything she’d learned.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Underneath the Colony,

  In the Grand Tetons,

  formerly Wyoming

  LARKSPUR

  She made her way deeper and deeper into the earth. The hole shrunk in circumference but continued to dip within the mud and rock. When it stopped, Lark tapped the ground several times and made sure it was solid and not a pit of mud and slush. She spun her crank light and cast it deep into the tunnels. There was nothing but tunnel and darkness underneath her.

  Except, Lark could hear voices.

  They weren’t far away, but they weren’t close.

  She scrambled along the muddy path until she reached a metal door.

  She scanned the path behind her and then the door and tried to estimate where she was. She wasn’t far from her own home but she never knew the tunnel existed. She rubbed her hand against the metal door and read the old stamp across the front. Wyoming Express Shipping. Before she had time to think about what the name meant or why it was buried beneath her home, the metal door began to move, and Octavia’s face appeared in the dark.

  “What’s the code?” the Child of the Lake barked at her, preparing for willful defiance.

  For a brief flit of a moment, she thought of choosing honesty, but she knew her parents were counting on her.

  “Dandelion wine,” Lark replied without hesitation.

  Octavia wouldn’t have to know Orin traded those words to protect the person in the metal container underground, and even though she didn’t understand why, she knew Octavia could never know they weren’t earned honestly.

  The image of the children behind the bars flashed through her.

  Thud.

  She pushed the memories aside. Maybe they’d get a nice meal. She couldn’t think about it—she could only do as she’d been told. Lark shuddered. Her feet were numb and her calves twitched, and she wondered if she would suffocate beneath the earth. She’d lost all sense of direction or understanding.

  “Thank God,” Octavia breathed, but her face didn’t change and her tone remained even. She retained her suspicion.

  Lark swallowed and forced a smile. “Good kids.” It was too much, and Octavia narrowed her eyes.

  “My family is sacred,” Octavia said. Lark felt shamed and dipped her head.

  Then the Child of the Lake nodded and she motioned for Lark to duck under her arm and into the candlelit safe room. “Come in. Be quiet. And don’t interrupt anything. Down here? This is my domain. You listen to me or you die. Got it?”

  Lark nodded.

  For the first time in her life, death seemed a real possibility. She made a move toward the door, but Octavia blocked her.

  “No. Let me hear you say it. Got it?” Octavia asked again.

  “Stop,” Lark sighed. She wasn’t up for games. Octavia stepped forward and stood tall in her way. “I got it,” she conceded.

  They stared at each other. Lark’s eyes attempted to stray to the visible piece of bunker beyond the doorframe, but Octavia stepped closer and cocooned herself, hidden, and she repeated. “My domain. I’m serious. At this point, assume you know nothing and your life depends on me.”

  “I got it,” she whispered, unable to hide the annoyance in her tone.

  “Repeat it.”

  “Assume I know nothing.”

  “Right. Larkspur of the Colony Masters. Okay, fine. Come on. Come meet our friend.”

  At first, Lark thought she might puke.

  Puking wasn’t an initial reaction in moments of anxiety, but it was certainly down the list of possibilities. And as her brain pieced together the scene before her, she knew Octavia’s creed was true—she didn’t know shit.

  Inside the modified shipping container, concealed ten feet beneath her house and accessible through a hole in her family room, her parents stored boxes and, it seemed, people. The back part of the container was equipped as a bedroom with a mattress and blankets, a wardrobe. It was impractically cold and Lark breathed out a hot stream of visible breath as she wandered the stacked boxes, assessing the names with confusion as she made her way to the back, where a girl sat on the mattress, staring at her.

  At first glance, Lark thought the girl might be twelve or thirteen. She was small and undeveloped with small features and a mop of hair cut that sent her cowlicks and curls into a rat’s nest of chaos. Her eyes were round and bright, taking in everything with caution like a yappy guard dog.

  She was dressed in a gray uniform, torn in sections that exposed her skin to its stages of healing after becoming mangled and bloodied. Lark attempted to smile at the runaway to endear herself, but before she had the chance the girl stood up and assumed a defensive stance.

  Lark attempted a greeting, but the girl stepped away and Octavia growled and stepped between the two of them.

  “You’re making her angry,” Octavia said. “Go sit.”

  “How am I making her angry?” Lark asked with genuine shock.

  “You just are.”

  “My face makes her angry?”

  “Sure.”

  “She doesn’t know who I am,” Lark hissed at Octavia, feeling perhaps she’d been owed a few more pieces of information other than assume you know nothing and you might die.

  “She knows who you are,” Octavia answered in her deep monotone. It seemed like nothing affected the Child of the Lake, and Lark wanted to retreat back upstairs and take her chances with the Fathers.

  “How?”

  “I’ve been down here for weeks,” the girl answered, her voice filling the shipping box with a deep drawl, an accent she couldn’t place. “Your parents fed me and Octavia, too. I know things.”

  “The Masters daughter is not good at assuming she doesn’t know anything,” Octavia said to the runaway with a sardonic laugh and walked over to a small pile of discarded items and picked up a backpack. The two girls shared a brief look between.

  “If you came down here...” Lark asked, turning back to the boxes and Octavia, “does that mean you snuck into my house sometimes?”

  “Nope,” Octavia answered popping her ‘p’ and sighing. She turned to the girl. “Okay. I have my signal. We can go. Follow me. Both of you. Quickly.”

  “Me?” Lark asked and she shook her head. “I just came to deliver the message—I’ll hide out here until the Fathers are gone and—my dad told me—”

  “Nope,” Octavia said again, same as before. She motioned for the girl to put on her own pac
k and Octavia grabbed Lark’s upper arm, leaning in close. Her breath stunk like she chewed on roots, Lark tried to push the second round of nausea down.

  “I don’t understand,” Lark said and she tugged her arm free and bit back the urge to cry. She wasn’t going to cry.

  “You don’t know what’s going on,” Octavia repeated. “You know nothing. And now you’re coming with us…because that’s the plan.”

  “My parents—”

  “Not part of my plan right now.”

  “No, they told me to stay.”

  “Nope.”

  “She’ll waste our time,” the runaway girl said.

  Lark didn’t know what to pay attention to—the girls? The boxes? She scanned the cardboard lined up against the walls. Everything was marked with names and dates: Annie, Fabiola, Providence, Seamus, Moe, Tyler.

  “No. I’ll stay here,” Lark said, her earlier fight bleeding dry, and she didn’t sound assured or determined. She leaned over and lifted a lid, glancing inside to see a mish-mash of objects and papers. She pulled out the paper on top—a page torn from an Old World atlas from the state of Tennessee, and someone circled a location several times in cascading circles of red. Scrawled next to it, only: Owen.

  Lark dug deeper. She yanked a plastic bag out from under the papers and held it up in the dim light. The bag contained a shoe, a dress, and a map. A piece of paper inside the bag read: Lady.

  “Do we tell her?” the girl asked, her voice small and squeaky.

  Octavia’s hand came down on the box, trapping Lark’s arm inside the box and she yelled out and pulled her hand free, dropping the bag to the top of the pile.

  “Nope. Now go,” was all the Child of the Lake said and she glared with such pointed intensity that Lark went icy with fear.

  Lark knew she couldn’t say no. Or, she wouldn’t.

  Octavia led the way, Lark was mushed into the middle, and the runaway—who was still nameless—monitored the back of their trio. Lark wondered how she’d become the untrustworthy factor in the group, the one liable to screw up or make a mistake. And what weren’t they telling her? Lark was tired and mentally exhausted. Had Elijah’s visit been that morning? Harper and Orin at her house that evening? What time was it now and where was she going?