"Don't be like that," he said. She could have spun out of his reach, but she wanted to be caught. She proved it by barely struggling in his grasp.
"You refuse me and now you scold me too? I offered myself to you!"
"You know I abide by the archaic manners." He struggled to maintain a soft tone. As much as it gritted him, he offered her a lie. "I prefer to save this for the day when I am linked."
It was a sentiment that Wind usually attacked for its stupidity. But in this case, aimed in her general direction, the sentiment was more like a good long stroke down the slick and winding back of her ego. She smiled, turning soft in his arms.
"I will tell my father you'll be coming by to speak intentions with him," she said. At least she wasn't spitting on his shoes again.
Diem didn't contradict her. It was a relief that she was appeased, for now.
CHAPTER FOUR
Present Day
Steven Burtman shifted on the chair to peer down at his angel again. The creak reminded him of how many times he'd done it already, not in the last hour, but in the last five minutes. In his old life, this kind of obsession would be comparable to hoping for a work bonus and doing little else than sitting at his desk and hammering the refresh button on his email throughout his entire work day. But in this life, he hit the refresh by leaning off his chair to gaze through the window of the third Profanyl Chamber in the first row, making sure there were still no bugs burrowing into the lovely arrangement of his angel's amaretto hair or scaling across her peaceful, sedated face. He spent his time wondering what color her eyes were, beneath the lids. He hoped for blue. Maybe green, if they were the right shade. He scanned over her twice more, searching for any rustling within, or maybe a bulge scuttling up through the neckline of her clothing, or worst of all, the flicking tip of a jointed antennae.
When he saw nothing moving inside the chamber, he sagged back from the container's edge, but the moment his spine settled against the chair, he was gripped again with the fear that there was indeed a bug—hiding in her tresses or secreted away beneath her arm—that he hadn't spotted. He craned forward once again. The chair creaked. There was no bug.
The Profanyl Chambers sat in their silent, soldier formation, rows of them stretching the length of the mammoth underground warehouse. Neither hot nor cold to the touch, the meat lockers had nothing comforting about them, even, and maybe especially, when they hummed. He'd learned that the deep hum, like a ventilation system kicking on, meant the chamber was compromised and that the person inside would soon suffocate, and despite his best efforts, die.
He'd tried everything to save the people inside—unlatching the chambers, insulating the bodies with blankets, messing with the wires connected to the humans inside. What happened was always ghastly. The only painless deaths were the ones that came when Steven did nothing more than watch it happen, through the tiny window on the chamber lid.
Steven didn't have a clue as to what he was doing wrong or how he could go about fixing the chambers. He didn't know how to wake the people inside. He couldn't even recall how he'd woken up himself or why he hadn't died before he'd popped the top of his own chamber. He'd been so centered on not shitting himself and getting out of the tight little box as he thunked on the lid. All he really remembered perfectly was the relief of the chamber door opening and how he'd surged up with an inhale, as if he'd been trapped underwater too long.
But it didn't do him any good. He didn't remember the special combination that led him to life instead of death. So, for the others, he could only stand by, screaming and sobbing and kicking dents in the sides of the freezer tombs each time he lost another. He wasn't one of the goddamn Archive doctors that was supposed to be on hand. He was just goddamned.
Miserably, the score remained: losses: 10; saves: 1. He was the only survivor so far. When he'd climbed out of his tomb, he'd seen that the freezers stretched out in the underground cavern a lot further than he was willing to venture.
It brought up a hazy memory of the day he and his wife had been led down to what was then a well-lit show floor. The tiles were large white squares that shone like they'd been buffed with oil, the walls a serene beige, the white ceiling lit by long fluorescents.
Steven and his wife, Chloe, had followed their salesman, Clive, down a curtained hall which gave privacy to the other chamber occupants, already suspended. When they reached the chambers they'd purchased, Steven peeked around the curtain separating them from the rest of the room. There was enough empty space beyond to accommodate the assembly of a naval destroyer.
"Business slow?" Steven had joked.
"Hardly," Clive had laughed. "We're just awaiting the next shipment of chambers. Honestly, the spaces are selling so quickly, I don't know what we'll do once this warehouse is filled."
Steven and Chloe, dressed in the soft Archive jammies, took cookies and spiked herbal tea from a man dressed up as butler. It was like they were at some elite sleep over. They'd laughed like wealthy people do, with Clive, about rising like swamp monsters when they woke in a few decades. The details of the waking weren't crystal clear, except that Clive had reiterated how the Archive staff would be standing by, ready to assist.
"What if the surface hasn't been stabilized?" Chloe had asked.
"Simple. If the outer doors to the Supply room are sealed, it means we stay at the party down here a little longer. Remember the luxury suites I showed you? The two of you have a suite and access to all the amenities: the pool room, the spa, the five-star movie theater. You can make meals in your suite or join us in the dining room for your choice of gourmet dishes from our menu. It's a damn sad thing that the scientists are on the verge of a working atmosphere patch now, isn't it? Who wouldn't want a couple weeks lazing around in the Archive's lap of luxury? Gourmet meals, the massage parlor and sauna, billiards, bowling, a five-star theater...sounds downright miserable, doesn't it?"
Clive had winked at Chloe, with a soft elbow nudge.
"Awful," Chloe had giggled. Steven looked away.
"But what about going back up? It will be 17 years from now. Things change."
"Steve-o!" Clive delivered a mock punch to Steven's shoulder. "Relax! The Archive's services are there to make sure that you and your loved ones will have the smoothest transition possible, back into everyday living. Remember, your assets and accounts will continue to be monitored and invested by the Archive's finest financial advisors, with your executor always acting as an overseer. With the investors we have on staff, some Archivers are probably going to wake up trillionaires in 2030."
Clive radiated such confidence in his product that Chloe had developed an unshakeable faith in the system. Steven knew his wife had impeccable sense and a shrewd eye for detail, but the reason why he went along with the whole Archive idea, was that he couldn't say no. She had the purse strings and he had no prospects. Although their marriage had dried up to a passionless routine, it was still safe. He preferred safety to risk and convinced himself that plodding through a predictable life was enough for him.
After their snack, Dr. Welson had joined them. He administered three shots. One stung like a rusty thumb tack.
Steven had kissed Chloe the same way they'd always kissed goodnight. Chastely. She'd gone first, gingerly stepping from the short platform they wheeled in front of her chamber, into the silver box, and smiling at him as the doctor had adhered monitoring wires to her. She'd joked about how he could kiss her like Sleeping Beauty if he woke first and then, bam. She was asleep.
Any worries he had were put to rest with Chloe in that moment. Steven climbed into his own box as if he were climbing into a Maserati on the show room floor. He gave the doctor the thumbs up. It'd been lights out immediately.
But he never expected to wake like he had, in the pitch black showroom, with him falling out onto the white tiled floor, now buckled and dusty and snarled with tree roots. No waiting staff and no lights, save the bulb from his chamber door.
The room smelled of compost and there w
as a tang of metal that caught in his nose. The empty space beyond his chamber was now filled with only ten or so more rows of chambers stretching into the dark. The chamber bulb made the space glow like a fridge opened for a midnight snack.
He finally remembered Chloe, and stumbled from the chamber to his right to the one at his left, unable to remember which she was in. He shrieked when he found her, not out of relief, but because there was a dark orange bug creeping across her forehead. He pried open the lid, intent on smashing the intruding creature. But as he hoisted the lid, one of Chloe's wires popped off her neck like a wobbly elbow of macaroni and a soft beeping sounded from the side of the chamber.
The bug zipped into the air, flying away on thin wings. The millions of dollars they'd spent on the fancy chambers, the hours they'd spent listening to the spiels of the beautiful oasis they'd wake to, and all the technical mumbo jumbo about the high tech safety measures—and there was no Doctor Welson waiting with a butler's tray of spare parts, to re-attach Chloe's wires or fumigate her chamber or to tell Steven what to do. There was no manual.
Chloe gurgled. Her rib cage sunk, with an audible sigh. Steven smiled down at her then, expecting her to open her eyes and look around and tell him what to do next. But she didn't. Instead, she turned blue.
Steven didn't know CPR, but tried to do it anyway. He cracked her ribs trying to pound a heartbeat back into her. Nothing worked. It took more time than it should have for Steven to realize Chloe was gone. And more time than that to accept that she'd left him completely alone.
His legs began working again before his brain did. He hobbled away from his and Chloe's chambers, his muscle memory retracing the path he'd followed into the place, back when he was clothed in the Archive's jammies. The curtained walkway was gone, two aisles running down the room now, defined by the space between the chambers. He stumbled his way along in the darkness until he felt a handle protruding from the wall.
Clive had shown him the crank. The memory flooded back: he had to turn it and it would generate the lights. Steven's muscles were linguine, but he cranked it, throwing his body into the motion. A dim, blue light slowly glowed to life, leading him to the doors from the chamber room.
Steven stumbled through the pair of doors that swung like they belonged in a cafe kitchen. The Supply stretched out in front of him. Steven felt the wall for another crank and found it, turning it until his shoulder ached. The light was soft and clear in this room.
For its military-sounding name, Supply was an enormous dining room. The round banquet tables were still decorated with elaborate centerpieces, although the fake flowers drooped from their stems, weighed down with dust.
Steven caught sight of the outer doors at the front of the Supply. The salesman had given Chloe another wink, before knocking a knuckle on the metal doors.
"Remember, if these babies are sealed, then hang out in the luxury of The Supply, the spa, or the library, with the other Archivers, until these doors unseal. They're programed with all the latest technologies to open automatically under only the right conditions."
"What if they don't open?" Steven had asked. Clive blew it off with a short laugh and a clap on Steven's back.
"They will!" Clive laughed. "Don't you read the papers? The scientists almost have a working atmosphere patch already! This is just a great safety feature, Steve-O. At Archivers, our priority is your safety. It's just that if there is any chance of a delay, then the Archive is going to make your stay beyond pleasurable, with luxurious accommodations and a full staff, ready to serve you and..."
Clive had launched into another list of impressive amenities.
Steven crossed to the outer doors and gave them a pull. Sealed. He turned and leaned his back against them, unsure if he was relieved or terrified.
He finally went to one of the Supply tables. The tables and chairs were still covered in elegant, flowing, dusty linens, waiting for the ghosts to rise for an invisible feast. Steven pulled out a chair, sending up a cloud that made him cough. He sat down and refused to cry, even as the tears streamed down his face.
***
Steven sat for what could have been days. He didn't know. There were no clocks, no staff to tell him. The watch he'd smuggled in, the Rolex that he wouldn't trust to throw into the Archive lock box, no longer worked. The hands were frozen in a 5:45 frown. Seventeen years on one battery was a too much to ask.
His hunger finally returned with a roar and he was happy to have it. Anything was better than thinking of how alone he was.
He got up from the table and went into the adjoining room. It was a huge pantry, lined with cupboards and shelves and counters. Hoping to God that Clive hadn't lied about the food supply, he threw open the cupboards.
Huge and hairy with oddly jointed legs, a chamber bug shot out from the shelves. The thing was the size of a small egg. Steven's reflexes kicked in as the bug toppled from the edge and fell on the counter. He grabbed a heavy can off the shelf and brought it down hard on the thing. The bug made a gaseous sigh as its shell crunched beneath the can. Steven whacked it three more times, until the legs went slack. He left the can on top of it.
He almost cried when he saw the rows of dusty canned chicken on the shelf in front of him. The sobs rose up the moment he reached into a drawer and cut his finger on the wheel of a hand-operated can opener.
Steven twisted off the top and ate like no wealthy business man would ever be seen eating: scooping the chicken into his mouth with his fingers. The salty chicken juice dribbled down his chin and left oily polka dots on his pajamas.
He stayed in the Supply for what was probably days. His life fell into a routine of eating, cranking the bulb, shitting in a fancy, faux toilet positioned over a deep hole in the floor in the hallway bathroom, outside Supply. He made games out of his meal garbage to amuse himself and did rounds of half-assed calisthenics.
He was prepared to never go back into the chamber room again, except that it didn't take very long for his hope to build that someone would wake up as he had. He finally gathered his courage and ventured in, but only to the very first row.
And it was there that he'd found her. Third from the end, she had a familiar face, although he couldn't place it. After viewing others in the row, he found himself returning to her again and again.
Just to look.
Then to stare.
It wasn't like she minded.
She was a lovely girl who somehow radiated tranquility and assurance in her slumber. He brought in a chair from Supply and from that moment on, Steven assumed all kinds of things about her. He became protective of her, especially since the light, no matter how hard he cranked, barely reached her.
The attraction wasn't sexual. At least, not at first.
Once he found candles, he balanced one in an empty chicken can and used the light to reveal the name tag on the girl's chamber. Etched on the plate at the crown of the box was her name. Maeve. Maeve Aypotu.
Steven knew the surname. Her family was prominent, her father owning all the leading medicinal brands. He controlled as many health outcomes as God did; Aypotu Drugs ran through the veins of people on all seven continents.
Aypotu was a household name, but even if Steven Burtman had never popped an aspirin or filled a prescription in his entire life, he would've figured out that the Aypotu were the people who sat on a bigger pile of Benjamins than anyone else in the Archive. Their Profanyl Chambers were top of the line titanium tanks that sat right up front. Those chambers came with all kinds of benefits, including the promise to be opened first, so their inhabitants would be sure to attend the party in the new world ahead of everyone else.
But money was not Steven's incentive to watch over Maeve. It was her.
The classic beauty, with her creamy skin and small chin and wide eyes—he couldn't leave her side. She was his Mona Lisa, his slumbering princess, his Pearl of Venus, and if he could just find a way to open her chamber, he could be her Prince that kissed her awake. He could feel it in his gut.
But with no way to open the chamber, Steven Burtman settled for keeping watch at the helm of Maeve Aypotu's chamber, faithfully monitoring for any invasion of bugs. And occasionally tried to peep down the open V-neck of her jammies. Since he couldn't kiss her, he said her name out loud a hundred times a day instead. It was an opiate on his tongue, the effect radiating a soothing warmth in the deepest parts of his chest. It was the only heat left in the whole, dark underground warehouse.
Steven sighed. His chair creaked. It was getting so damn lonely.
CHAPTER FIVE
Five Weeks Post First Waking
Someone had parked a couch on Maeve's eyes, she was sure of it. She woke and stared into her dry, dark lids, unable to flutter them open. It didn't freak her out as much as maybe it should have. Probably because her whole body felt horribly cold and beautifully drugged all at once, a gauze-winged moth on the first day of winter.
She lifted a weary hand to her face and the bed she laid on rumbled beneath her. There was a slow creak overhead. Then she heard a man's voice. It wasn't particularly deep, but it was a man's voice. Something dragged across her cheek.
"C'mon...wake up, beautiful," he said. It was a little creepy that he sounded so intimate when the voice wasn't at all familiar. It certainly didn't motivate her to haul open her eyes. She decided it would be better to gather a little info before she let whoever it was know that she was absolutely awake.
It was a great plan until the druggy feeling faded and the shakes started. Cold and hot at once, it came on like a blazing snow storm, a few numb flakes circulating in her veins and then wham! Her skin was reduced to a burning bag with thick, icicle bones thrust inside it. The raging ice burned in her veins, all of her muscles and nerves jerked back to life. The shakes started off small, but gained speed until she was flopping around, whacking the sides of the solid surfaces around her, as if she could open up and toss out her bones.
The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) Page 5
