It didn't matter that she cried. It didn't matter that she was herself. He had little to no awareness of her. All she could do was suffer through the pain and hope for him to finish. She endured it, by pretending that he was actually making love to her and not Breeze—that she was not just the tool he was using to release himself, as he fantasized of his Link.
He came with a mighty groan and a wetness that rushed down her leg when she wobbled back onto her feet. He stumbled away without looking back at her, mumbling and laughing about what a good woman he had.
The next day, Wind told Breeze what had happened the night before.
Blink was hauled in from off the lawn, where he was still sleeping off the night's festivities with piles of hampigs snuggled all around him. Breeze took the entire matter to Span and life at Breed House instantly went on slant.
Blink picked up a walking stick from the heap beside the guard's fire.
"Let's go," he said. She hesitated to follow him down the path that would eventually lead them back to Breed House, but she didn't see herself with any other choice. She couldn't remain with the other guards; not when they were men that spent such long periods without women. But she dreaded returning to Breed House where the other members of her House no longer treated her with the respect fitting the daughter of the Rha, since the Rha himself had shunned her from the moment she lost her virginity and became of no use to him.
The only thing that would keep Blink from forcefully planting another child with Wind now was maintaining her lie that she belonged to Diem. He had no way of knowing that Eon had carried her to the wall on his shoulder, or that Motion had shoved her across the line to her own House's land because Diem had rejected her. She had no idea whether or not Blink really believed any of what she told him, but she understood, as they set off together, that somehow, she was going to have to find a way to make her lie the truth.
She had to make Rha Diem fall in love with her. That would show them all. Diem could redeem her; give her a fresh start, a new life. But she had no idea how she was going to make that happen, especially now that there was a high stone wall, as solid as Diem's rejection, keeping them apart.
CHAPTER NINE
12 Days Post Second Waking
Maeve stood at Casper's elbow as he plugged in a new code for the outer doors. At least he'd cleaned himself up. After Maeve heard water running and Casper emerged with wet hair, she had him explain how he'd gotten the shower going.
He was excited to show Maeve that there was actually water available, so they didn't have to use up their bottled supply. Opening what Maeve thought was an electrical box behind the bathroom door, he twisted the knobs inside. When he turned the shower spigot, the resulting water gushed out brown and stinking like garbage, but it eventually ran semi-clear. Casper turned more knobs in the box behind the door, speaking to Maeve as he did it.
"This recycles the water," he explained. "It's an incredible filtration system. It removes the impurities."
"What if somebody pees in the shower?"
"Why would they do that? There's a toilet right there." He pointed to the porcelain throne, as if Maeve had missed it. "But, I suppose that if there was an accident, I'm sure the filtration system would also remove those impurities."
"But you're not positive?"
He paused, with a troubled tweak of his brow, before answering, "Oh no, I'm quite certain. I tested that in Experiment 31. There was no detectable taste and all harmful impurities were successfully removed."
Maeve supposed it was Casper's black-and-whiteness that gave her the faith she had in him. Waking up in the Archive, he wasn't freaking out. He was shitting his pants and going back to work, explaining how the water system operated, and now, deciphering codes that would tell them how long they'd be stuck down here.
Casper gave the handles of the outer doors a yank. Nothing.
"Do you know why they're not opening?" Steven asked from behind Maeve. Without looking up from the keypad, Casper shook his head.
"The readout display codes should give me an idea of what the atmosphere is like outside," Casper murmured. He humphed.
"What? What's it telling you?" Amber asked from Casper's other elbow. Casper paused, tipping his head back and letting his mouth fall open, as if looking at the ceiling would help him think.
"Is it safe?" Steven prodded.
"Shhh," Amy swatted him. "Let the guy answer."
Maeve's mouth went dry watching the last hope they had, who was still scanning the ceiling as if he was confused or lost or trying to think of a way to break it to them all that they were going to die. But then he closed his mouth and looked back down at the keypad.
"What is it?" Maeve whispered.
"I don't understand the reading," Casper said. "It makes no sense. It's showing a chemical composition of various minerals, oxygen, organic materials, as well as some materials that the analyzer doesn't have in its data bank. There is also a high concentration of metal oxides."
"What does that mean? Speak English, for God's sake," Steven snapped. Casper glimpsed Steven over his shoulder.
"It is English," he said blandly. "It means that there is something more than air outside the doors."
"What could be more than air?" Steven said. Casper shook his head.
"Dirt, ash, garbage."
"Garbage?" Amy whispered. Her voice skittled away from her as her fingers went to the soft spot of her neck.
"What are you talking about—garbage?" Steven demanded. Casper pushed his glasses to the very top ridge of his nose.
"The read out would indicate that we are located beneath a landfill. Possibly one that was incinerated at some point."
"Oh, you're insane!" Steven said. "Open the doors! It's Lancaster up there! This is a billion dollar operation! They wouldn't have just bulldozed us in! It couldn't have just disappeared in seventeen years! Those read outs have to be wrong! Open the doors and let's see what's really out there."
"I don't think that would be a good idea," Casper said. "If the readouts are accurate, then opening the doors would not only flood this entire area with soil and garbage, but it would crush us in the process."
The women stepped away from the door.
"Oh, you're not buying that, are you?" Steven said, rushing toward them. "They're just doors! They'd buckle if there was a landslide!"
"That's not accurate," Casper said. "The doors are sealed with steel reinforcements that could withstand—"
"Then what are our options? There's got to be emergency exits, right? Where are they?"
Casper thought on it a moment, standing very still with a slight tilt to his head. Amber and Amy leaned in, anticipating his answer, as Steven paced in short bursts behind them.
"Yes," Casper said. "There are other exits at the four corners of the Archive, if the construction was completed."
"Huh?" Maeve's chest rose with the sound.
"I volunteered to be an Archive Experimental in 2018. Air quality was so unstable and my asthma was becoming impossible. But the Archive was still working on expansion and I don't know how far they got since then."
"About that...about that 'since then' part," Steven said. "We don't even know which year it is for sure. None of the clocks are working."
"Oh no?" Casper stopped with the door and turned toward the dead clock on the Supply wall. He stared at it a moment, as if registering that it was really there. Then, he strode across the room and felt along the bottom of the frame. His knuckles moved like he was playing the neck of a guitar and, suddenly, the display lit with a scramble of green numbers.
"Hmm," he hummed.
"Now what does that mean?" Steven said. The numbers continued to flash, disjointed, since some of the lights that formed them were burnt out.
"It's taking a lot longer than it should."
"Should? How long is it supposed to take?"
"As long as it takes to locate the satellite and download the current data. It's remarkable technology, but it suggests—"
Casper's voice dropped off abruptly. His head cocked and he slid it backward, pressing up a tiny double chin. His brow furrowed.
"Mother of God," Steven whispered. Maeve swung her own gaze to the clock.
The green numbers were mostly solid now. Easy enough to read.
10 JUNE 2095.
***
2095.
Maeve had been in that chamber since 2013 and the first thing that came to mind was ridiculous. She wondered how she hadn't rotted in 82 years. The second thing was that she was, technically, 104 years old. The thought made her feel as wobbly as a baby tooth. She went to one of the Supply table chairs and sank down onto it.
The third thought was as ludicrous as the first two. She wanted her damn boots. Now. She swirled the thought around her head as if she were stirring a drink with her finger. If she was wearing her shitkickers, the world might have a chance at being right again. She nearly laughed out loud. Not likely.
Amy and Amber dropped into chairs at the table. Steven leaned against the wall, hiding his face in the crook of his arm. The only one that was handling the readout at all was Casper. He was busy calculating and scratching things down on his pad of paper. That black-and-whiteness that Maeve had admired a moment before, was a trip wire on her nerves now, even though she didn't understand why. She wanted to incinerate his stupid notebook. She wanted him to fix the door. Fix the damn clock. She wanted a different answer.
Maeve jumped to her feet. Casper glanced up, but Amy left her head down on her folded arms at the table and Amber, leaning off a chair, kept her own face cradled in her palms. Steven didn't budge.
Maeve stomped from Supply, to her suite. Grabbing her flashlight from her room, she took off down the hall, away from Supply. Her walk became a jog and then she picked up her feet and went off at a dead run. She ran down the corridor, her hair streaming behind her, turning corners and rushing into the dark ends of the Archive that she'd already explored, until she reached the parts that she hadn't.
Her boots had to be there somewhere.
And damn if she was going to leave them sit for another minute in the dark.
***
It took Maeve an entire day of investigating, searching through whole other wings of suites and offices. She found the pool room with a cracked and empty pool, the dusty theater and stock rooms full of more clothing, baby items, medicines, guns and ammo and knives, mountain bikes and kitchen supplies.
By the time Maeve busted the lock and swung open the door to the room that was stacked with little treasure chests and a coat check area with her tagged boots, she was as frightened as Amber and Amy had been the first time they appeared at her door. The Archive, ready for any Armageddons or World Wars or Uninhabitable Earth conditions, was empty. Whoever was supposed to be here hadn't made it and most of the amenities were musty.
Maeve turned down all other thought as she went up and down the tight aisles of shelved treasure boxes, until she found her box. She took the plastic key from around her neck and popped the lock. Looking down into the box, she actually giggled. Then she stripped naked, in the hand-cranked, dim light of the room, and slid into the leather pants she'd worn to the Archive 82 years ago. The t-shirt and vest seemed a little fragile at first and stunk like the pine lining of the box they'd been in, but once dressed, Maeve felt a little closer to herself again.
She slid her feet into her boots and buckled them up. The leather welcomed her, her toes finding their old imprints in the soles. She took a deep breath. It was all she needed.
Maeve left the treasure box room to find the other outer doors at the tail ends of the Archive. She was ready now to bust them open and stomp out to face whatever the world had become, head on.
CHAPTER TEN
Hot Season Five, Year 2095
Phuck wanted to see the new catch of eggs, to be able to count them himself, although his air intake region squeezed uncomfortably with the thought. The Rha's private dragon grounds housed Forge's lair. Although House dragons were supposed to be the property of the overseers, dragons, as a rule, were twitchy with Plutians. The only way around it was to wear specially made suits that not only covered a Plutian's entire body, but insulated it, so the dragons couldn't sniff them out.
Since Diem's dragon was neither caged nor chained, even the occupants of Fly House stayed away. Especially after one of the wall guards got drunk on distilled gorne and decided to take Diem's mighty dragon for a ride. The recovered, charred body was all it took to ensure that Diem's private grounds remained that way.
Phuck met Diem a mile from the grounds and they walked in together. It would have been a quiet walk, but Phuck felt he'd jeopardized a great deal when he confirmed that Diem's life was based on how he handled the quiet side-business that the two shared. Of course, the human had guessed right—Diem's talent for training proved profitable for Phuck's side venture in the Hope Market. It was definitely what kept Diem alive and his House favored. However, if Diem continued to dwell upon his possible death, Phuck worried that it could ruin any chance he had of gaining the human's sister for a mating.
"You should trust me," Phuck complained. "I am your overseer. It seems right to trust me, since I trust you with the catches."
"Trust?" Diem grunted. He pulled back a spindling branch, but didn't bother to hold it back. It snapped back and struck Phuck across the cheek. "You count every egg you give me and you question every single one that doesn't hatch."
"Of course. Why wouldn't I?"
"Exactly." Diem pushed aside another sharp branch of a spindling and let it fly. It slapped Phuck in his partial mouth. "Sorry," Diem grumbled.
"I understand you are sorry. I just wish you'd stop doing it," Phuck said, just as another branch whizzed back and whacked the alien.
"Sorry," Diem said. Phuck dropped behind for a few feet, on guard against more branches, but when nothing came at him, he sped up and returned to the conversation.
"I trust that you..."
Diem stopped abruptly and spun around. "You trust me? What would happen if an entire catch died? Or went missing? How much would you trust me then?"
"Well...I...if they all died?" the Plutian stammered. "They would never all die. You wouldn't be in the position you are, if a catch had ever all died."
"Fine. Went missing. Say some of them flew off. I made a mistake and didn't clip their wings early enough."
"Oh...ah," Phuck prodded his little Plutian brain to think its way down all the possible avenues, but every single one drove him to the same dead end—the truth. He really did want this human to accept him, to allow him to take his sister as a Link. Or, at least for a long period of mating that would last until his term as an Earthen Overseer was complete. "If they went missing, I suppose I'd have to kill you. It would be obvious neglect on your part."
"No, it wouldn't." The human's jaw clenched; the muscles drew tight all the way to his temples. "Things happen. Mistakes happen and dragons die. Understanding that, and knowing your business partner isn't going to kill you if it happens, is called trust."
Tight jaw, teeth bared, brow furrowed low over the eyes. Phuck's data-packed brain registered Diem's symptoms as signs of stress. The conversation was still not going well.
"Death does occur, but mistakes are most definitely neglect," Phuck reasoned. "I suppose if it were death, I could make a concession. So long as it wasn't a death created by a mistake. That is fair. I agree to that. So, now you can trust me."
Diem's lips pulled to the side. Brow still furrowed, the human shook his head. "Yeah, I trust you...Phuck."
The name sent a surge of warm pride rushing around beneath the alien's skin. Long ago, when the humans had trouble remembering his Plutian name, they insisted on naming him themselves, and he was honored that they sought to make him one of their own, even in this small way. He reveled in their gesture of respect and acceptance and was reminded of it each time they used the title they'd given him.
"Thank you," Phuck said. Diem turned away, trudging o
n toward the dragon grounds. Phuck followed behind, the grizzly black hole in his face blotting out a great deal of his broad smile, until Diem let go of another spindling branch.
***
By the time Diem reached the dragon grounds, streamers of red welts stretched out from all around the dark center of the Plutian's face. Diem stepped into the flattened pasture only after he'd scanned for his sheathen, Forge, and given a soft, peaceful whistle. She was nestled in a cave at the far end of the field, a line of satisfied smoke drizzling from the opening.
"Is the beast sleeping?" Phuck asked, staying back in the trees.
"Looks like she is," Diem said. "I'll call out the hens."
"Let me get further back!" Phuck said and the spindling branches snapped and shook as he scrambled to get deeper into the fire-retardant trees. Good thing, too, because Forge not only despised Plutians, but she was also fiercely loyal to Diem. His dragon read his feelings as if they were her own and that meant she would very likely express her equal disdain for the overseer by roasting him with one sympathetic sigh.
Diem stepped out onto the field and whistled again. It was more like the beginning notes to an upbeat tune than a simple whistle for attention. There was an initial puff of smog from the cave opening and then the ground trembled as the dragon stirred.
Diem continued to whistle. The melody heightened and suddenly, the dragon shot from the cave into the air, twirling as she ascended high into the sky. Her wings beat once and even at the distance, the gust they generated blew Diem's hair back. He continued to whistle his tune, even as the dragon twisted in the sky and began a furious decent toward him. Forge came roaring down, pulling up at the last second and landing with such grace, just a yard away from Diem, that only a quiver rippled through the soil. She dropped down, folding up her wings, her long neck swerving back and folding in on itself, until her chin rested on the ground at his feet. Her wide eyes blinked at him.
The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) Page 10
