She picked up one of the dark blue bottles and looked at the iridescent sheen of the glass, felt the surprising weight of it, the rounded corners. Opened the top, she looked into the bottle, standing with her back to the spray of hot water so as not to get the contents of the jar wet. Inside, white liquid, thick and shimmery, filled the jar. The smell that came out filled her nostrils, intoxicating and sweet, like the most delicious food she could imagine. She wondered if she could eat it without getting sick. She wanted to use it, but then she wondered what the other bottles contained, if they held similar wonders.
One by one, Cali removed the lids and looked into the bottles and jars and tubs. One had grey powder and smelled like cooked eggs. A little of it spilled out when she untwisted the top, and she cast a guilty look at the door. How long had she been in the shower? She should get out, but not just yet. She had to smell all the wonderful scents, see the insides of the containers, touch the contents. Some of them had clear liquid, some whitish, all of it thick. They smelled of water in the dry season, of flowers, fruits, sweetness, indescribable scents she could only imagine but not name. One of the flat containers had a big white lid, and when she unscrewed it, the clear yellow gel inside released a tangy fragrance that made her mouth contract and fill with saliva.
She rubbed a drop of gel between her fingers, wishing she could keep a tiny bit of each one to smell forever. If she had such a wonderful array of happiness in her bathroom, she’d never leave. Maybe that’s why Superiors had to decorate their showers, so if they stayed in them all day, they’d have something pretty to look at. Probably why they didn’t let saps have anything but flat, dusty smelling bars of soap, too. Saps had to work, not spend all day in the shower.
Cali opened the last two jars, matching white ones with stoppers in the top. One of them contained white lotion that smelled of roses, and the other had green gel with a tart scent. If only she could keep one. She looked at the door. But no…Draven wouldn’t want her to steal. And she’d done enough bad things already. She didn’t need to make him mad again.
But if she used just one, only once…
He wouldn’t come in the shower room, so how would he know she’d used it? If he smelled it, she could say she’d only opened the bottle to see what it held. She chose the first bottle she’d opened, the one that smelled like food. When she tipped the bottle, a whole handful of the stuff came out at once. She glanced towards the door again, but the steam from the shower clung to the glass and obscured the bathroom door. Working quickly, she massaged the soap into her hair. She’d never stayed in the shower so long. What if Draven heard her? He might wonder what was taking her so long in the shower. He might come to check on her.
He moved so quietly, so quickly, she wouldn’t even hear him. Once, he’d taken her to his apartment back home, and he’d come in the bathroom and yanked back the curtain while she showered. But he wouldn’t do that now. And if he did…
But he wouldn’t. At least, she didn’t think he would. But if he did…
She rubbed the soap over her face, closing her eyes and lifting her chin so the water coursed over her head, down her neck and body. If he did…
He wouldn’t look at her the way he had then, determined and uncomfortable and demanding all at once. Now he looked at her differently. Deeper, fierce and intense and yet somehow soft. Like the way he’d felt in her hand, soft and then fierce. Thinking of it still made heat blossom in her face.
Cali scolded herself for her silliness. It wasn’t her he wanted. He could go out and get a Superior woman any time he liked. Is this how they felt, warm and steamy and clean and smelling like mouthwatering food, like caramel but spicy? If Cali felt that good all the time, she’d probably want to share herself with any stranger she met, too, just so they could see how amazing she was.
If he walked in, he might think she smelled as good as a Superior woman. Would she mind terribly if he thought that, for a minute? Maybe he would walk in, and he’d think she looked like those women, too, sex-y.
And then what?
And then he’d undress and step in the shower behind her. This time, she’d get to feel him up close. If those were his hands, not hers, moving over her bare breasts, slippery with soap that left her hair silky and heavy and slick. And down, over her stomach, over the front of her thighs, slippery soap everywhere, so much of it. Between her knees, her thighs, and then… What?
She knew what came next. She knew, in a hypothetical way, how to do the thing that made babies, although she’d never succeeded. As far as she could tell, all women had to do was wait on all fours to get stabbed a few times down there and pray it would be over quickly. She didn’t think much of mating.
Except Draven said Superiors called it something different. Sex. A strange, short word that slid hissing slippery off the tongue and stopped like a knife driven to the hilt. Maybe they had it right.
And maybe they did it different, and that’s why it was called something else. She’d seen enough of it to know other people liked it. In her little tin shanty growing up, her mother brought men home. They tried to be quiet, but usually Cali would wake. And later, she’d seen people outside at night, between the shanties, not wanting to disturb their families. Like most anyone who happened to come out at night, she’d turn away, but she knew what they were doing. Kneeling on the ground, on hands and knees to keep their bodies clean of the dust, so they only had to brush off their hands and crawl back in their houses. In the barracks, on the little bunks, people didn’t have enough space to push up on all fours. And the bunks weren’t dirty, so they just lay there, girls on their stomachs with men on their backs.
The exact same thing that would happen if he did that, came in the shower behind her. The same way, but upright. And then she thought about his down-there again, how it would feel against her, willful and seeking. She finished rinsing quickly. She couldn’t think like that. If he really did that, she’d die of fear. But the thought had been nice. The hot water and steam overwhelmed her now, though, made her choke and sweat. She turned to the other end of the tub and turned on the other shower, cold. The water hit her full blast, a shock after the overheating time under the hot water. For a second she stepped back and stood with the hot water coursing down her back and the cold down the front of her body.
After turning off the cold, she turned to shut off the hot, but she hit the wrong button, and a blast of scorching steam hissed out of the showerhead at her. She jumped back, her skin on fire. The steam had scalded her shoulder and arm and one of her breasts. At least it hadn’t gotten her face. She reached around the roiling mass of steam and hit the button that turned it off. Why anyone would want burning steam to shoot out at them, she couldn’t imagine. She’d gotten more than enough steam from the shower. She turned on the cold water for a minute before she got out. Maybe the burn was her punishment for messing in all the Superior’s things. Still, she thought when they left, maybe she’d steal one of the little pots of scent, just a little one. To remember. Surely one person couldn’t use that much soap. She probably wouldn’t even notice if Cali took one.
Cali opened the door and stood in the doorway, letting the steam billow out around her. She hadn’t realized how long she’d stayed in there. Guilt washed over her as she glanced at the bedroom door. Not that he’d know what she’d imagined, but still… A funny trembling started inside her when she thought about the real person and not the one in her imagination.
And then he was there, standing in the bedroom doorway, as silent and sudden as in her fantasy, but dark and solid and remote, not like the half-steam man who came into the shower and ran his hands over her breasts, letting the nipples spring back up when his palms slid over them. The thought darted through her, quick and sharp. And she remembered something she’d heard about Superiors, that they could read minds. She turned and bolted from the house, sure he’d follow, sure he knew. The bright coldness of the day surprised her back to reality, and she almost laughed. Of course he couldn’t read her mind.
Still, she didn’t stop running until she’d reached her hut, gone inside, and slammed the door behind her.
CHAPTER sixteen
Draven didn’t see Eva again, but one night, not long after their encounter, he saw her saps again. One night, when most Superiors were at work, he carried each of the sapiens out and granted them freedom. The process proved slower than he’d expected, with some of the sapiens screaming and fighting him and some not waking to consciousness. Trying to explain what he was doing, the reason for it, took even longer.
What was wrong with saps? Even when broken and starved and dying, they could only argue when he tried to grant them freedom. He knew this freedom was frightening and dangerous. But at least they had a chance. When he’d had that chance, he’d taken it. Were they so much changed from when he’d been one of them?
The people who had brought them there had done a thorough job of terrorizing the saps against the blood bank. It loomed in their minds as a mythical place, filled with each one’s private nightmare. Somehow they believed they were free already, that they had chosen this life and that the blood bank would be the bondage they dreaded so much that they would die horribly in a basement to avoid.
They did not know freedom, not enough to know they hadn’t found it. Draven didn’t imagine he knew, either. Once, he’d thought he found it. But now he only ran from one person and then another, his life growing more violent and desperate each time he fled. But this thing he had done, without regard to punishment, was right. In some way it made up for the wrong he’d done Cali, even if she never knew it.
Perhaps he was no more free than these skeletal animals squatting on the broken pavement in a huddle. He only thought he’d found freedom, and he would do anything for it, even take another’s freedom. And perhaps all along he remained as trapped as they were.
Draven left them, wondering to what lengths he would go before the cost of freedom became greater than the thing itself. What was it, this freedom he wanted so badly? Was it only an idea, like love, that never became reality? Perhaps it wasn’t freedom at all, but his own human youthfulness that he chased, the feeling he’d had in those years he’d spent as a sapien, when all ideas carried such optimistic conviction. When he had believed in all of them, freedom and love and absolute truth, even equality, as he lay with that first woman who had educated him so thoroughly with her ideas that he thought them his own. Afterwards, when he had thought himself free, but was only running, as he did now.
When he returned to the stone house, he stood outside Cali’s hut for a moment, but he couldn’t bring himself to enter. Instead, he turned away and went into the Superior house, the prison-grey walls of his freedom, the prison of illness in his mind that he could no longer deny or escape.
CHAPTER seventeen
Meyer arrived at his office in Moines to great fanfare. The staff had decorated his office with banners, the screen had been expanded to fill all four walls, and 4-D fireworks exploded on them when he entered. Meyer laughed, delighted by their happiness at his return. Perhaps it was the power they knew he possessed, but he didn’t see the difference between respect for money and respect for person. He was a person with money. The reason was irrelevant, as long as they showed him proper respect.
It wasn’t until nearly morning, when one of his PR girls came by his office, that his day got really interesting.
“Hello, sir,” she said, inclining her head. “May I speak with you?”
“Yes, of course,” Meyer said, gesturing grandly to the seat across from his desk. “I’m catching up on some files and figures. What can I do for the lovely Eva?”
“I only wanted a word with you, sir.”
“Yes, I know. Get on with it, please. I’m happy to spare you a moment, but you know I am busy.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry. You know how Jerry and I have that…side project?”
“Right, yes, go on.”
“There has been…a…”
“Spit it out, dear. What’s wrong now? Did one of your pets die?”
“No, sir. Not exactly. We had a…break.”
“A what?”
“I may have…mistakenly judged someone,” she said, then hurried to explain. “I met a man at a bar. He didn’t have papers. You know, a drifter. I gave him your card, told him to look you up. He was so hungry he couldn’t take his eyes off my drink the whole night. So I wanted to feed him.”
“Ah, so he stole your saps?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you gave him charity, and he betrayed your trust? And you want me to get them back and punish him?”
“I, uh…”
“Here now, just tell me straight, alright? Don’t waste my time beating around the bush, as my mother would say.”
“What bush?”
“Never mind. So, do you know the name of this tosser?”
“Actually, sir, there’s something else I should tell you.”
“What is it?” These Third Orders always bumbled about and couldn’t put a sentence together for a truckload of sap.
Eva paused before answering. “He may not have stolen the saps.”
“Then what’s the problem? He killed them? Brought his friends along?”
“No, he, uh…let them loose?”
“He left the door to the shelter open?”
“Not exactly. He let them loose.”
Meyer closed his eyes and summoned patience. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“He opened the door, and took them out. They said—more than one of them, too, told me the same story—he carried them all up the stairs and told them he was granting them freedom. He even gave a few of them the clothes he was wearing.”
“A drifter with more conscience than appetite? Impossible. I’ve never known one to refuse a drink.”
“I haven’t, either. But he got very upset when I showed him the place, threatened it. I moved the key, but I guess he found it. He wouldn’t eat, though he took every drink I offered.”
“You shagged?” Meyer asked. Although shagging hadn’t turned out to have the same appeal for him as it did for most Superiors, Meyer knew its power. He was glad not to be distracted by such silly physical sensations, but it was a handy tool when used properly.
Eva frowned at Meyer’s drumming fingers. “Uh, yes. A few days after I showed him the shelter.”
“After he let the saps out? Was he that thrilling, or were you trying to catch him?”
“Actually, he let them out a few days after the…shagging.”
Meyer laughed. “Not impressed, I see. I’m surprised. Usually men are quite taken with you, aren’t they?”
“I suppose.”
“Did he get his rocks off with any of your saps?”
“Of course not.” Meyer enjoyed Eva’s scandalized expression. “But,” she added a moment later, “He didn’t with me, either.”
“Here now, what a shame,” Meyer said. “Different strokes for different folks, my mum used to say. Everyone has his own tastes,” he explained before she could ask. Thirds never understood old sapien expressions. “So, what would you have me do?”
“Punish him? Threaten, at least. Or better yet, give me a place for the shelter.”
“I don’t want to get involved. You know that. Too risky for me. I condone what you’re doing, but I don’t want to know anything, not even where the shelter is. If you want to make it a legal, charitable organization, I’ll put my finger in the pie then.”
“What’s pie?”
“Oh, bollocks. Never mind,” Meyer said, waving a hand. “I’ll see what I can do about the man. He needs papers?”
“I guess. Unless he was some left-wing human-rights nut who was just faking it to try to find something to get up in arms about.”
“Awfully big coincidence that he’d find you, isn’t it? Besides, it would be all over the news by now if one of those activist crazies were involved.”
“True. I don’t mean to keep you. His name is Draven. I don’t know hi
s last name. But I know you’ll find him. You have a way of finding things.”
“Yes, anything can be found with the right motivations. Draven, is it? I’ll let you know.”
When Eva left, Meyer leaned back in his chair, balancing on two legs while he studied his shiny shoes with a frown. Draven Castle was in Moines. Was it the same man? He did have a record of stealing saps. Although apparently he had enough on his plate with Byron’s and had left Eva’s to fend for themselves. His record hadn’t indicated much of an activist inclination, but he had that one arrest some years back…
The legs of Meyer’s chair hit the floor with a sound like gunshots. He would indeed look into this. If it was the same man, this was getting more and more interesting. True, this Draven fellow wasn’t anywhere near as clever as Meyer, but he seemed to have an affinity for law-breaking, and Meyer could appreciate defiance. It was his pastime, something to break the monotony and give his enemies’ hatred credence. He wouldn’t have been so keen on breaking the law if he’d been a desperado, but each had his own style. He was looking forward to meeting this Draven character.
On the other hand, he hoped it wasn’t the same Draven that had stolen Byron’s sap. He wouldn’t be begging for drinks at a bar unless he’d lost Byron’s sap or she’d died along the way. That was a pity. Meyer would have liked to use his knowledge of Byron’s weakness against him a little longer. He’d only toyed with the Enforcer a little. There was so much more fun he could have had.
Oh well. He’d find out soon enough. Maybe this was something else he could use to his advantage. Knowledge in itself was power. And he knew exactly where Draven was, because he had arranged his living situation.
CHAPTER eighteen
Cali woke before dawn and sat up. The faint sound of the door to the house closing must have woken her. Shivering, she rose from her bed and pulled her blanket around her. Rain had seeped under the door while she slept, and the packed earth floor had a thin layer of water on it. Her feet made wet sounds as she walked to the door. More water came in when she opened it, flowing eagerly into the opening. She found a bag of food by the door and went back to her mat on the floor. Lightning flickered, illuminating the room for a moment, long enough for her to snatch the flashlight from beside the bed. She dried it on her shift and began cranking the handle.
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