Drastic Times (Book 3): Fierce Freedom

by Rock, R. A.

  “What’s wrong?” I said and Yumi and I both jumped to our feet.

  Shiv drew in a breath that was almost a sob.

  “They’ve captured Grace.”

  I STOOD UP and gave Bill an apologetic glance. “I’m sorry Bill. We’re going to have to cut this session short.”

  Chad and Shiv said goodbye and filed into the hallway.

  “No problem,” he said. “Let me know if I can be of any help.”

  I smiled and went and gave him a hug.

  “You already have,” I said.

  He gave me a bright smile through his beard and I glanced around his office, wondering if I would ever step into this room again.

  “So, I’ll see you… another time?”

  “I hope so,” I said and there was understanding in his eyes when he nodded. I smiled at him, again, so grateful for all the help he had given us. Then I hurried to catch up with the others.

  “THE FIRST thing we have to do is find out where she is,” I sent to Chad. “Can you get on it?”

  “As soon as I can sit down and concentrate,” he muttered as we hurried through the dark tunnels of the Survivor community. Shiv and I exchanged a worried glance. Chad had never needed to sit down and concentrate to use his power before.

  I felt a stab of guilt but reminded myself that that wasn’t helpful at all. There hadn’t been anything else to do. I had needed to save him from going insane and I had done what was necessary.

  We arrived at the hallway with the three rooms they had given to us and Chad opened our door. Shiv stopped in the doorway and gave a little sniff. He turned and examined my face and then Chad’s as if searching for evidence of something.

  “Maybe we should go to Audrey’s room and see if she’s there,” he said, stepping into the hallway. “Then if she comes back, we’ll know right away and be able to fill her in on what’s going on.”

  “What is it?” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.

  “There’s not very good air movement down here,” he said, and then in what appeared to be a completely unrelated segue he asked, “I take it you two made up?”

  “How did you…?” I said and stopped not sure I wanted to know.

  “There was a hell of a lot of sex going on in that room last night, wasn’t there?” Shiv said as he followed Chad to Audrey’s door.

  “Yes,” Chad said, not even blinking an eye as he knocked. I shrugged and gave Shiv a little smile. He grinned at me and held up his palm so I could high-five him, which I did. Chad shook his head at us, a half-smile on his handsome face.

  He knocked again.

  “Audrey?” he called out.

  No answer.

  He turned the knob and went in. The room looked hardly used. Shiv shut the door behind us and plopped down on the bed.

  “Now tell us exactly what happened,” Chad said.

  “Well, we were picking herbs in a little stand of poplars when they suddenly attacked. Several men tackled me and held me down. I felt an injection and then I went unconscious. When I woke up…”

  He swallowed hard, his face bleak.

  “Grace was gone and Audrey was just waking up, too.”

  “Fuck,” Chad said, running his hand through his hair.

  “Why is it always Grace?” Shiv said, his voice desperate.

  “First of all, it’s not always Grace,” Chad pointed out. “Last time it was Yumi.”

  “Um, excuse me but technically last time it was you and Shiv,” I corrected him.

  “Second of all,” Chad went on, ignoring my interruption. “New Winnipeg — meaning Natasha — wants to punish us — well, mostly me. It’s probably them that did this. They needed to send you and Audrey back to tell us what happened. Now they’ll try and use her to lure the rest of us.”

  “How do you know it’s New Winnipeg?” Shiv said.

  “Who else would use injections of drugs to subdue people?” I said. “Not the ragged families that are barely getting by. Not the Plague Carriers. Not the Survivors. I have a feeling that Kyle’s ways are more club them over the head style. Or he just stays out of other people’s business. Besides, remember they used a tranquilizer on me before?”

  Shiv nodded, looking upset.

  “What are we going to do?” Shiv said.

  Squatting down, I put my hand on his arm and searched his eyes

  “We’ll get her back, Shiv. We always do. Right? We take care of each other. Don’t worry.”

  Chad sat down on the stone bench that was carved into the wall in every room. He closed his eyes and Shiv and I waited. When he finally opened his eyes, I could tell the news wasn’t good.

  “Where is she?” I said.

  His face was troubled.

  “She’s in Castle Bakersfield. And they’ve got her in adamantium. Natasha must be working with Bakersfield and he must have agreed to hold her until they can take her back to the secret city. This is bad.”

  “THIS IS extremely bad news,” Kyle said. “And you’re sure she’s there?”

  We had told him that Grace had been taken and that we knew where she was. Shiv had explained that he had overheard them mention where they were taking her before the drug took effect. It was a plausible explanation and probably more believable than the truth. We didn’t like deceiving these people, who seemed decent. But we just couldn’t tell them about ourselves and our abilities.

  What had really happened was that Chad had listened in on her mind the same way he does with a non-Telepath. Because his power is that he can hear every single mind in the universe, he doesn’t need someone to be telepathic to hear their thoughts. He could hear her thinking about where she was going and found out that she was being taken to Castle Bakersfield.

  “Looks like we’re going to have to move up the timetable on infiltrating the castle,” Chad said.

  Kyle frowned.

  “I’m pretty sure you’re not ready,” Kyle said.

  In response Chad walked over, wrapped one arm around me and yanked my body against his. Then he laid a kiss on me that made my knees weak.

  When he finally pulled away, I looked into his eyes, dazed. And if he hadn’t been holding me, I might have slid to the ground, my legs unable to hold me. I gave him a dazzled smile and he kissed me on the forehead with reverence.

  When I was sure my legs would hold up, I stepped back.

  Kyle had an amazed expression on his face.

  “What the hell?”

  “Convincing?” Chad said, looking a little smug.

  “Convincing,” Kyle said and he looked happy, if confused. “But you’re not done your sessions with Bill.”

  “We’ve made a lot of progress but we can’t wait anymore,” Chad said. “They have my little sister. It’s a chance we have to take.”

  “It’s dangerous,” Kyle said. “If you slip up, he’ll… well, let’s just say he’s ruthless when it comes to spies in his court. Have you heard of the water chamber?”

  Yumi shivered.

  “We have,” I said.

  “Then you know what I’m talking about.”

  “We can handle it,” I said, folding my arms. “We’ve been undercover before.”

  I thought of the charade we had played at The Agency when we first found out that they had pegged us as rogue agents. They hadn’t attempted to capture us right away and we had had to continue to act as if nothing was wrong — just going about our lives as usual. It was nerve wracking. But we had convinced them.

  We would convince this Nathan, too.

  “Before the solar flare? Were you undercover cops?” Kyle said.

  “Something like that,” Chad answered.

  “Okay, let’s nail down a plan, then.”

  LATE THAT afternoon, Chad and I crouched behind some bushes, watching the comings and goings at Castle Bakersfield. We had been here for two hours already but we still weren’t sure about the best way to get in.

  It had taken only half a day by motorcycle to get close enough to the castle to walk in. Kyle
was kind enough to let us use a bike, which we really appreciated knowing how precious fuel was to them.

  He had told us about how they had a store of gasoline from before the solar flare that was still good, due to stabilizing additives that they had put in it. But it was almost gone, so a couple of their mechanics had converted some of the bikes to biofuel. They grew fields and fields of sunflowers north of the Wastelands to get the oil to run them.

  We had left Shiv and Audrey back at the Survivor community with the promise that I would keep them updated on what was happening. Neither of them liked being left behind, but they certainly couldn’t come with us to infiltrate the castle.

  “Let’s just walk up to the gate,” I said, not feeling particularly subtle. “We’ll hold our hands up. Like we’re surrendering. They probably won’t kill us.”

  Chad squinted at me in the dim light of dusk.

  “And you’re willing to take that chance?”

  “What choice do we have?” I said, turning to survey the busy castle again.

  “We could…”

  Chad was cut off by a voice behind us.

  “Hands up,” she said.

  I glanced at Chad.

  “Well, that solves that problem.”

  “Keep a tight mental shield,” was all he sent back, his expression grim.

  CHAD AND I were brought into Bakersfield Castle by the East Gate just as the sun set, casting blood red rays across the dreary landscape. The woman holding the gun on us appeared to be well trained and we did exactly as she said.

  Because we didn’t want her to kill us and because she was being enormously helpful bringing us into the castle, since that was exactly where we wanted to be. We walked in on the road that ran over the old hydroelectric dam. There was a large rectangular structure with four huge columns and a beam that ran across them. Below us I could hear the water churning.

  After walking for about a minute, we were close enough to see the building, which was frankly quite an ugly example of end of 20th century architecture. It had the words…

  Jenpeg Generating Station

  Manitoba Hydro

  …written on it and a ragged red and white Canadian flag flying above it, the maple leaf almost unidentifiable. As we approached the castle, there were guards stationed every thirty feet or so along the rails that ran the length of the road leading to the building.

  All of them had guns, which showed just how rich and powerful this Nathan was. But I did notice that each guard had a different kind of gun because they had probably been procured from ransacking all the empty houses that were now scattered across Manitoba.

  As we came to the end of the rectangular structure, I noticed that there was a rocky spit of land that extended downriver to my right about fifty feet and was about twenty or thirty feet wide. I made note of it as a possibly useful escape route, though by the look of the frothing water that ran alongside it, it would be a potentially dangerous one as well.

  The guard let us into the castle proper through an unassuming unpainted steel door. As we stepped in, I felt like I had been transported to another world. Instead of the industrial sort of setting I had been expecting, the door led to what must be their great hall.

  The most striking feature of the room were the now-defunct turbines that lined the room, which was longer than it was wide. Enormous shiny steel rods spanned from floor to ceiling. Each had a round platform about two feet high that circled the huge turbine rod and that you could walk up on to. An identical round piece at the top made them look like the old fashioned dumbbells that I had seen in some of the ancient movies I had watched from this era. The structures went from floor to ceiling as if some giant had been working out and had wedged his dumbbells into the room, got them stuck, and abandoned them.

  Chad gave a low whistle of amazement — I’m assuming because the place was incredible.

  And I am not easily impressed.

  There was still a sign that informed us that we were now in the powerhouse of the dam. But all the mechanical and industrial stuff had been removed from it and it had been renovated to the point that it was the most beautiful room I had ever seen in this time. Nicer even than the New Winnipeg ballroom. And that’s saying something.

  The platform of each of the turbines had been refitted to be a round table and there were chairs that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Prime Minister’s home. I wondered where they had scrounged them from. Maybe one of the hotels in Winnipeg before the city had been levelled?

  The sound of clinking plates and cutlery came from the far end and I guessed that the kitchen was down there.

  The walls had been repainted in a refined off white and the light fixtures had most likely been replaced. I’m pretty sure the dam hadn’t had such pretty lights.

  “Electricity?” I murmured, a little shocked that they would have anything like that.

  The guard turned her head.

  “We have some solar panels that we scrounged. They’re used for lights. Nothing else.”

  I nodded.

  As she brought us in, they were in the middle of being seated for supper and all eyes turned to us. I immediately felt dirty and underdressed.

  I stretched my spine upwards and put on my expressionless face, noticing that Chad had straightened at the scrutiny and was surveying the crowd with an expression that said I don’t care what you think of me.

  The people before me were wearing the fanciest clothes that the 21st century could provide. The women, for the most part, wore tight dresses that showed off their slim bodies — likely they were thin because they often went hungry, but I supposed that didn’t matter. The men had on suits and ties. Everyone was clean and the women had make-up on.

  Was this a holiday? Or did they dress like this for supper every day?

  I thought about New Winnipeg and their balls and events that they held on a regular basis. I supposed that these last bastions of civilization felt the need to hold tightly to those things that separated them from the savages on the outside, such as clothes, make-up, and beautiful, expensive surroundings.

  The guard spoke quietly to an impeccably dressed server who approached as we arrived. A moment later, he returned and whispered to the guard.

  “This way,” the woman said, directing us to a long, gently curving corridor that ran the length of the great hall. There were doors at regular intervals on one side of the hallway. I guessed that these were the quarters where people lived and worked.

  The server opened one door that looked exactly the same as the others and gestured for us to enter. We were in a fairly large and imposing room that had an elaborate chair on a dais. The guard who had brought us in still followed, keeping her gun trained on me.

  A throne room.

  On the chair sat a young man who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old — if that. He was handsome in a classical way with a strong jaw and piercing green eyes. His brown hair was cut short and he had a goatee that made me think he had grown it in order to look older. He reminded me of the kind of actors and musicians that Grace used to have crushes on regularly when we were in our teens.

  Who was this little guy? And why was he playing at being king in Bakersfield’s throne room?

  As I thought this, a man that I hadn’t noticed before and who looked to be in his forties stepped forward.

  “May I present to you the lord of the castle, His excellency, Nathan Bakersfield.”

  This…kid…was Bakersfield?

  What the fuck?

  THE CASTLE BAKERSFIELD throne room had been a bit of a surprise, though Madeline had told us about it. But this kid was even more of a shock. I could hear the distant murmur of the people in the great hall having supper. The guard closed the door and the room became as silent as deep space.

  I schooled my features immediately as the older man introduced Bakersfield, since he would probably be insulted if we reacted with surprise or laughter. When I risked a glance at Yumi, she had on her expressionless fac
e though I could feel astonishment and amusement coming through the soul bond.

  I reminded myself that this kid commanded the entire stronghold and that meant something, no matter how young and pretty boy he looked. Unless there was someone else who was the power behind the throne? I studied the older man, wondering who he was.

  “What were you doing outside my castle?” Bakersfield said, getting straight to the point. He had a deeper voice than I expected and there was a steel behind it that made me think that he was the only power in this place. I went into the spiel I had prepared, making my speech as formal as I could and watching him for his reaction.

  “My name is Chad Dvorski, your excellency, and this is my wife Yumi Dvorski.”

  Yumi’s face didn’t change but I felt the burst of annoyance that shot down the soul bond as I introduced her with my last name. But though the practise of women keeping their own names was gaining in popularity at the beginning of the 21st century, it still hadn’t been widespread when the solar flare happened. And in the Survivor communities especially, women never kept their names after marriage.

  I was only being prudent. There was no caveman in me that thrilled to the sound of her having my name as if she were mine.

  No. Of course not.

  “We have come to beg your permission to join your community here in Bakersfield Castle.”

  This seemed to surprise the young man and he looked us over as if considering us in a new light.

  “You wish to join us?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “We can work hard at any task that needs doing. We are both good hunters and could bring meat to the table everyday. Both of us are good fighters, but Yumi particularly, could help train your soldiers.”

  He frowned at this.

  “Women are to be trained, they do not train.”

  “Of course, your excellency. I wished only to inform you of our skills. I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to run your castle.”