“Yes, but they weren’t normal people.”
“Mutants, perhaps?”
“If that’s what you call them. The soldiers with my father must have fought them as they were sure to catch me soon. I was very tired and very sick.”
Claudia could hear Cavanaugh exhale heavily out his nose. He shifted in his seat and she heard the scratching of him writing something on paper with a pencil. “And what happened after that?”
“I don’t know,” Claudia said.
“You didn’t see anything else?”
Claudia laughed and tapped the side of her fresh bandages beside her left eye. “I feel lucky to be seeing even the backsides of my own eyelids.”
“Indeed, thank you for telling us what you know.” Cavanaugh flipped the cover of something shut, Claudia guessed the notebook he’d been writing in, and then stood from the chair.
“That’s bullshit, Cavanaugh,” the American man said from across the room. “She knows something.”
“Perhaps she’ll remember more later,” Cavanaugh corrected the angry American. “We’ll let her rest and see if something else comes to the surface.”
Three sets of shoes walked across the room and out the door. Claudia waited for some time after the men left, wondering if the voice had indeed hidden beneath her bed. Her answer came after a few minutes when she felt the bed shift again. The soft hand was once again holding hers lightly with the gentle voice whispering in her ear.
“You did well,” the voice said. “They’ll have to free your father now.”
“Who are you? Where am I?” Claudia whispered.
“I am Olivia and you are in the City of Broken Bridges,” the voice replied.
“Is my father okay?”
“He is jailed the last month, waiting for your words to free him, which you just did.”
A month, Claudia mused, she’d lost an entire month to a coma. It was better than being dead, blind, or mutated, she supposed. “Would you stay with me awhile?” Claudia asked.
“I’ve visited you so often, a little longer couldn’t hurt.” Olivia held her hand still, although shifted until she was clearly sitting a little higher than the floor. Again, Claudia heard a strange ticking and metallic clicking like a clock when Olivia moved. “I’ve wondered for weeks now where you came from and how you found your way here.”
Claudia sighed and began telling the bare bones of her story, of the Ravens in Carson City, the mutants in Yuba City, the accursed motorcycle, and even the man swept away by the mudslide who had given Claudia her only lead. Without seeing Olivia’s face to judge her reaction, Claudia was left to wonder what impact her words might have had on the silent holder of her hand. Finally, Olivia responded, her voice closer and lowered by emotion.
“You and your father are cut from the same cloth, Claudia Marceau,” Olivia whispered to her.
Chapter 11:
Sights Unseen Not to be Believed.
A week passed under the cover of bandaged darkness. Claudia only caught brief glimpses of the room she was in, always in darkness, and outlines only of Dr. Gatling and Olivia. Thankfully, the inspectors did not return, although Olivia informed her they were doing their best to delay the release of Commander Marceau.
Claudia split her waking hours between telling Olivia of the outside world and listening to Olivia read to her in the lovely accent Claudia was increasingly enamored with. She still couldn’t precisely say what Olivia looked like, but she found her charming and dedicated, which increasingly drove her attraction.
When the time finally came to remove the bandages and offer Claudia her first darkened look at the world, she requested that Olivia be the first face she saw if her father was still not free at that point. Dr. Gatling waited until nightfall to remove the bandages, keeping the room dark as a precaution. A faint candle, heavily shaded, offered the only light, kept far from the patient in the corner of the room. Claudia’s bleary eyes scanned the room as it slowly came into focus, finally settling on the woman sitting half on the foot of her bed, head cocked to one side in a quizzical pose.
Her sandy blond hair was cut short and styled messy. Freckles dappled her cheeks and forehead. Her eyes were large, rounded, and the pleasant color of chestnuts. She had the look of a World War II bombshell dressed in an appropriate fleece-lined leather bomber jacket. Claudia smiled to her and the woman smiled in return with her pert, chapped lips.
“Olivia?” Claudia asked.
“In the flesh, more or less,” Olivia said.
Olivia moved closer and took a harder look at Claudia, which offered Claudia the same opportunity for close inspection. Olivia had a slight bow to the right in her flat little nose indicating a badly healed break. Her lips had a few scars indicating they’d been split repeatedly with several cuts that likely required stitches to close. A large, jagged scar cut its way from Olivia’s hairline above her left eye down, skipping over her right eyebrow, and then completing its run on her right cheek. Among Ravens, scars were badges of honor—Claudia envied Olivia’s.
“Is that normal?” Olivia asked, looking very closely at Claudia’s eyes.
“Talk about things not to say to someone who just got eye bandages off after a week,” Claudia said.
“Five weeks,” Olivia corrected her. “You keep forgetting about the stasis chamber.”
“She’s irritating like that, isn’t she?” Dr. Gatling said, roughly turning Claudia’s head to face him. A faint headlamp illuminated Claudia’s face, although the good doctor was careful to keep it from directly shining in her eyes. “Well, that’d be a new one on me.”
“What?!” Claudia said.
“Maybe something, maybe nothing,” Dr. Gatling said. “Were your eyes always two different colors?”
“No, of course not,” Claudia said.
“Not different colors,” Olivia interjected. “The same color—different shades.”
“Hold your hand over one eye and then the other,” Dr. Gatling said. “Is there a difference in your vision?”
Claudia did as instructed, holding her hand over her right eye and then her left. Something indeed did seem strange when she looked only through her right eye. The green lights on the display of the heart monitor machine looked strange, as if they were more multi-chromatic, not quite rainbow level, but definitely with more variation in color than the plain green her left eye saw.
“The light on the machine looks different,” Claudia explained. “More colors mixed in.”
“More colors…” Dr. Gatling mused. He continued musing under his breath as he wheeled out of the room, returning shortly with a strange device that looked a little like an electric lantern but with a strangely small bulb. “…more spectrum maybe…pigmentation problems could have a lot of explanations…worth a look regardless.” He guided his wheelchair to the opposite end of the rather large room so he was well concealed in the darkness away from the flickering light of the candle. “Tell me, both of you, how many fingers am I holding up.” He snapped a button and a faint buzzing filled the air.
Olivia strained to see through the darkness. “I don’t know—four?”
“Two,” Claudia said, “your thumb and your index finger.”
“How did you see that?” Olivia asked.
“The light he turned on,” Claudia said, still holding her hand over her left eye.
“She’s seeing outside the normal visible spectrum,” Dr. Gatling explained. “The lamp I turned on is a chromatograph for a radiant color of an ultraviolet wavelength humans can’t see.”
“Why would you even have a thing like that?” Olivia asked.
“To check if I could see it,” Dr. Gatling said. “I’ve been experimenting with Slark radiation treatments on lenses to create bifocals that see outside the normal human spectrum of light. What we see is highly limited in the grander scheme of all radiant light. I believe the Slark see in a spectrum we don’t.”
“You call them Slark too?” Claudia asked, momentarily distracted from the bizar
re news about her eyes.
“Yes, of course,” Dr. Gatling said. “It came from the military—Six Legged Artillery Rover…it’s what the military called the giant platforms before we knew what was on them. They added the ‘K’ to mean ‘kill’ when they finally started downing them. But that’s neither here nor there.” He set aside the lantern and wheeled back over to the bed. “The real developments began when we started taking their technology apart. They have radiation unlike anything on earth. I thought I could use it to create a lens that could see a broader range of UV light. We have bulky, delicate machines that do this, but I thought I could create a simple lens with no moving parts perfectly attuned to the Slark spectrum because it would be created by the Slark spectrum. Your eye proves my theory correct. Certainly, the lens is the natural lens inside your head, but the principle is sound!”
“Wait, you were irradiating spectacles?” Olivia asked. “Weren’t you concerned about giving yourself eye cancer or something?”
“Oh my goodness no,” Dr. Gatling said with a dismissive flap of his hands. “I didn’t wear them myself. I used the Irradiated patients to test them—they’re reasonably immune to Slark radiation, as, I might add, is Miss Marceau now.” Dr. Gatling clearly lost himself in thought again, tapping a little copper lever on his headgear against the prickly beard on his cheek. “But she’s worthless for testing the lenses…she can already see the UV spectrum beyond normal parameters. The practical applications still remain, jumping my research over the prototype testing to actual field work…”
“What practical applications are you on about, doc?” Olivia demanded.
“The Slark use lights for communication that we can’t see,” Dr. Gatling said. “I was going to build detectors to try to find them if the lenses thing never came together, but now we have a working human eye, lighter and more portable than anything I could build.”
“I can see the Slark’s communication?” Claudia asked.
Dr. Gatling nodded. “In theory, anyway. We still need field tests. It’s a shame we only have one…” and then he was gone from hearing range, out the door, and back to the lab.
“Is he coming back?” Claudia asked.
“Probably not for a few days,” Olivia explained.
“Do you have a mirror?”
“Worried you’ll look strange with an eye two shades lighter than the other?” Olivia asked. “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you a little stranger.”
“True, although I’m not sure that is how that saying goes,” Claudia said.
“It is now.” Olivia sat on the edge of the bed, closer to Claudia. She pulled up the cuff of her trousers to display her mechanical leg with the lustrous copper plating. Claudia looked deeply into her own reflection on the prosthetic’s surface. It was difficult to tell color in the golden mirror of Olivia’s leg, but she could definitely make out the drastic difference in color concentration between her eyes.
“How did it happen?” Claudia reached out a tentative hand and touched the metal leg. It was vibrating at a highly regular interval and almost sounded like it might be ticking.
“One of the Lasher Trees got me,” Olivia said.
“Lasher Trees?”
Olivia pulled the cuff of her trousers down and gave Claudia a questioning look. “I forget, you’ve never seen Slark occupied territory,” she concluded. “They brought their flora and fauna with them and it’s pretty horrible stuff. Didn’t you wonder what they were doing here?”
“All that is above my pay-grade,” Claudia said, borrowing a line her father was fond of saying.
“The Keepers think they’re probably colonizer refugees from a dead or dying world,” Olivia explained. “They brought their menagerie and equipment to make good use of them. We destroyed their fishing fleets a dozen times before they ran out of Slark who knew the trade. I’m not sure what they use the lasher trees for.”
“Fishing fleets? They brought fish with them?”
Olivia smiled and shook her head. “What have you been fighting them with in the desert? Pointed sticks and heavy rocks?”
“Guns, mostly,” Claudia said, feeling a little foolish for the answer. “Horses too.”
“The fish are where they get their fuel,” Olivia said. “It’s from a gland or some such squishy bit that turns the blood into…I don’t really understand the process, to be honest. Dr. Gatling figured it out almost immediately. We’ve been plucking them from the sea and making our own version of the fuel for years now.”
Claudia’s eyes went wide, which kind of hurt a little. “How…?”
Olivia stiffened a little at the implication. “We’re English,” she said. “We’re the island nation who took to the sea and forged a global empire with limes, pluck, and wooden ships. The oceans are ours and always will be. Hell, sometimes we run our ships down to Los Angeles just to fire a few volleys into their home.”
The last bit was a boast, and one Claudia easily spotted among the braggadocio of it all, but she didn’t doubt the rest of it. If the Slark had been able to fish the waters, they would have had Slark fuel to fight the Ravens with, and they didn’t. It was a vital piece of the puzzle, and one the Black Queen or even the pilot would have been able to make astounding use of if someone could actually carry the information to them.
“I could scream or kiss you or both,” Claudia said. “If only there were a way…”
“I wouldn’t say no to a kiss,” Olivia interrupted.
Claudia glanced down to find Olivia’s fingers with the scarred up knuckles were fidgeting among the sheets of the bed. The accursed romantic in her, the one who came along with the ruinous streak inherited from her mother, set aside all concerns. Claudia watched the fingers, considered the offer, and planned her next move. She lowered her head just enough for some of the black curls of her hair to fall across her face. She looked up through the curtain she’d created and smiled impishly. The effect on Olivia was obvious and precisely what Claudia hoped for.
“You’re looking for appreciation, yes?” Claudia asked. She waited for Olivia to answer, wetting her lips when her flirting partner began to speak.
“I wouldn’t say…” Olivia trailed off, her full attention drawn to the glisten on Claudia’s lips catching the faint candlelight from the corner of the room.
“Thank you,” whispered Claudia. She slid closer to Olivia, placing her hand on Olivia’s to soothe her fidgeting fingers. She waited again, showing patience in the dance, until Olivia looked ready to speak. Before she could, with the words left unformed in her mouth, Claudia kissed her.
Olivia’s offhand comment was the only spark needed to ignite Claudia’s tinder. From what little she’d learned of Olivia over the past week, Claudia knew the respect and admiration she received from Olivia was at least partially based in being the daughter of someone the Brit greatly admired. Fantasy, regardless of the bizarre source, was something Claudia thrilled at fostering. She thought herself a talented gardener of romantic desires with a red hot thumb for the work.
Olivia cupped Claudia’s face, taking the cue as aggressor when Claudia began pulling her toward the bed. Claudia let Olivia lower her head to the pillow in an ineffably sweet gesture that maintained the escalating contact of the kiss. Olivia’s lips were so full, so lovely, with just a little rough edge from lack of tending in a harsh land—Claudia loved them as she imagined they were what Fiona’s lips would be like. She lifted her hand to grasp the back of Olivia’s neck, drawing her down to deepen the kiss.
A man cleared his throat from the doorway bringing the kiss to an end with such suddenness that Claudia wouldn’t have been surprised if it made a snapping sound when it broke. Olivia and Claudia whipped their heads to look to the door in unison. Standing proud and tall, backlit from the hallway, was Commander Marceau. He had a slender face similar to Claudia’s although his features jutted with prominent structures on the jaw, chin, and cheekbones in ways hers didn’t. His eyes matched her left eye in piercing, deep blue, but unlike her, h
is hair was tan on the border of blond, clipped short with graying edges around his temples. From the last clear image in Claudia’s head, he looked older, more rugged, with a few extra scars and a little less muscular bulk, but the eagle’s sharpness in his eyes remained stronger than ever, perhaps even more so.
“I am glad to see my daughter fit enough to flirt well,” Commander Marceau said, “although I am surprised you would fall so easily for her charms, Ms. Kingston.”
Olivia pried herself from Claudia’s grip and stood as quickly as the whirring gears within her leg would allow. She saluted crisply, staring off into a space that was neither at the commander ahead of her or the commander’s daughter directly before her. “My apologies, commander.”
“Never mind that, Kingston, but if you don’t mind, I would like to speak with my daughter.”
Olivia saluted again, took one glance down to Claudia who rolled her eyes as though she should have stood up for herself regarding the kiss, and then Olivia walked briskly from the room. She stopped briefly at the doorway. “It is good to have you back, commander.”
“It’s good to be back, Kingston,” he said over his shoulder. He waited a moment until the clicking of her leg fled down the hall beyond hearing. His attention returned to Claudia and a proud father’s smile painted his lips. “My daughter, still kissing the boys and girls, only to break their hearts, no doubt.”
“I am my Papa’s daughter,” she said.
“You are more than I would have expected from even myself.” He crossed the room to her, scooping her into his arms, kissing her hair as he did when she was a child. “My little Claudia, my world, I never stopped hoping…”
Claudia cried tears of joy into the shoulder of his gray, tattered jacket. She knew his words were spoken with the purest truth, not simply because she remembered what was said on the bridge or what the inspectors had alluded to, but because she hadn’t ever stopped hoping either, and she believed their hearts had always beat as one. “Neither did I, Papa, neither did I.”
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