by James Axler
“World that blew self up?” Jak scoffed.
For a moment anger blazed in the baron’s eyes. Then, as if he deliberately quelled it, a calm hooded his gaze, and he continued in a mild tone.
“The old world was far from perfect. There’s no denying that. But to dismiss all that it was purely because of one war? That is, perhaps, taking things a little far. No. What I propose to do is to take the best of the old and use it to forge the new.”
“What if people not want?” Jak persisted, ignoring the glare that he knew would come from Ryan.
“Why wouldn’t they? Who wouldn’t want a better way of life than is the norm in these times?”
“You were about to tell us,” Doc interjected, not wishing Jak’s belligerence to take them off track; or, more importantly, to make Arcadian hostile, “why the past is so important. About the history of Arcady?”
Arcadian looked at Doc blankly for a moment, then smiled. “Ah, yes. To know this is very much the key to understanding how we work in Arcady.”
He sat back, the tension that had made him rigid now uncoiling, and began.
“Being in an isolated spot has always been a good thing for this ville. In fact, I think it’s probably fair to say that we’re one of the few places in this blighted land that has never seen fit to change its name. For we were Arcady before the nukecaust.
“A small town, we were made rich in the currency of the time by the old military bases that were dotted around this area. The only town in easy reach of them, we prospered off their jack. We also got to hear about what was going on in the world from the point of view of the military, and what we heard wasn’t well liked. So the elders that ran this ville started to withdraw from the United States. Much as was possible, we became self-contained and prepared ourselves for what was to come. My forefathers ran this ville well, and when the nukecaust came they made a point of preserving as much as possible, and using all that they had learned to keep us, and our way of life, intact. Of course, times were hard, and it wasn’t always easy to do this. Some things went by the wayside, but as soon as it was safe to emerge into the light again, we sought to rebuild ourselves, and through trade to bring in as much of the old as we could find still intact. Hence the archives that you see around you in this building. It all added to our sum of knowledge.
“Here in Arcady we’re the pinnacle of civilization in these benighted lands. We know this, and we want to take it further. My forefathers took the time to rebuild the ville and make it right before thinking about spreading the word. It took a hell of a long time, and it’s only in the time of my father and grandfather that this has happened.
“But now we can go further. One of the aims of the founding fathers was to breed among themselves with care, sometimes introducing new genes from female partners from afar aiming to leave each leader, each baron if we’re to use the terms of today, the most intelligent of his fellows. With each generation that has been refined until we reach myself. I have been engineered to use my mind to its greatest potential, and my father—knowing this—allowed me access to the riches of our knowledge from an early age. My plans are now close to fruition. We have to crawl blinking from the caves at some point. Why not now?”
He stood and positioned himself so that he was looking down on them as they sat.
“I always welcome those who I feel are of like mind, who wish to quest for improvement in this world. I felt like that as soon as Toms told me about you. Particularly in light of the stories that have circulated about you.
“It is providence that has brought you back here to Arcady. I would like us all to take advantage of that. While you are here—until the next convoy arrives—please consider whether or not it would be better for you to join with Arcady on a more permanent basis.”
He fixed them with a stare that held a manic gleam. Ryan shifted in his seat. Sneaking a glance at the others, he could see that Krysty’s posture spoke of her unease. Jak’s recalcitrance had been obvious. The other three masked their feelings well, but…
“We didn’t choose to come here, Baron,” Ryan said slowly.
“Please, call me Eugene,” he insisted. “No, perhaps not, but should you fly in the face of chance?”
That depends, Ryan thought, on how big a fist chance is aiming to throw in that face.
Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
“So will you stay here for a while, or will you take a chance with the road?” Arcadian pressed, leaving no doubt in his tone as to which he felt would be the better option.
Ryan felt like they were being pushed and prodded into a corner that wasn’t of their own choosing, but the simple fact was, the baron was right: a chance to rest and recuperate, keep an eye out for incoming, and maybe see what was going on. That was preferable to an option that he was certain would be made more difficult by the baron and his sec. Especially as Arcadian wasn’t privy to the knowledge that they were aware of how he had manipulated the situation.
This ran through his mind in a moment, and it was with an almost surprising speed that he actually said, “Yeah. We’ll stay. Can’t see how that will do us anything but good.”
If Arcadian noticed any trace of sarcasm, it didn’t register on his face. Similarly, if any of Ryan’s companions were surprised at the speed with which he acquiesced, then they maintained an impassive front. If anything, it was the baron’s effusiveness that caused them some surprise.
“Excellent! You have no idea how pleased I am by this decision!” he exclaimed loudly, banging his goblet on the mantel. “You won’t regret it, Mr. Cawdor, nor shall your friends. Now, please, eat and drink. I’ll call for rooms to be prepared. It’ll take a while, as I wasn’t expecting you to agree so readily.”
He strode off as he said that, and the import of the last sentence wasn’t lost on any of them. The baron was a man used to getting his own way, and although he hadn’t taken anything for granted, he had obviously been prepared to take as long as was necessary to attain his aim.
While he left the room, the companions rose from their comfortable positions and returned to the table. Each, without saying it, welcomed the chance for a comfortable night’s sleep. Certainly, if the bedrooms in this building were of a standard with the room in which they now stood, it would be the best night’s sleep they’d had for some time. Now that they had relaxed physically—if not mentally—their aching limbs and lactic muscles screamed for rest.
Mildred moved to the window, looking through the hangings at the ville below. J.B. joined her.
“How does that guy reconcile this,” she whispered, indicating the bustling thoroughfare below, as close to the old world as anything she had seen, “with the other part of the ville? And how many other parts are there that we haven’t seen?”
J.B. shrugged. “Figure we’ll find that out soon enough. The longer we’re here, the closer we’ll get. Arcadian’s got something in mind for us.”
“Yeah, that’s what concerns me,” she murmured.
The other four were also talking in low, hushed tones. It was a fifty-fifty chance that the baron had the room bugged: he had the tech, that was for sure. The only question was whether or not he would bother at this point. It wasn’t worth taking the chance.
“I feel comfortable here,” Doc mused quietly, “but not with our host, if you see what I mean. This whole building seems to be a shrine to the past, yet when he speaks—”
“It’s not a past that you recognize?” Krysty finished. When Doc nodded, she said, “I kind of know what you mean. There’s something he’s not telling us yet, and until I know what it is I’m going to feel uneasy.”
“Just go,” Jak said with as much emphasis as he could put into a whisper. “We go. Too comfortable, too soft, make us fight slow.”
Ryan nodded briefly. “You’re right, there. This place feels good on aching muscles, and we could all do with that. But we need to keep focused and triple red.”
Krysty gave a mirthless grin. “I don’t think the
re’s much chance of anything else. Not the way this place is giving me goose bumps.”
“Bad situation. Just need move now,” Jak said with a shake of his head.
“I don’t say you’re wrong,” Ryan replied, “but we could do with at least one night’s rest after today. Arcadian doesn’t know we’re triple red. He’ll be expecting us to give in to him like we seem to have done right now. Let’s keep it frosty. Don’t say a word, Jak. We’ll move soon.”
Jak fixed Ryan with piercing red eyes. “Got to. Feels wrong.”
“Have no fear, lad, you are not the only one who feels that way,” Doc said, laying his hand on Jak’s arm. “If I had strength, then I think I may start running and not stop until I reached China. Assuming there is anything left of China. No matter,” he added, catching Jak’s bemused expression. “All I say is that we all take heed of your warning, but not all of us have your physical fortitude. Recovery for tired limbs will aid flight.”
A cracked smile crossed Jak’s face. “Almost understand every word, Doc,” he whispered.
Further conversation was stayed by the sound of the baron’s heavy boots on the polished floor of the hall outside. Indicating that they would continue later, Ryan moved away from the table. So it was that the baron entered the room once more to a tableau that seemed to be so ordinary as to be bizarre in this time and place. Ryan and Krysty were sitting together on one of the leather sofas. J.B. and Mildred were still at the window, studying life below, with Jak and Doc still at the table. Doc appeared, to all intents, to be trying to explain to Jak how the artist had effected the brushstrokes that gave texture to the painting that hung on the wall nearest the table. Oddly—or so it would have been if Arcadian had been more familiar with the group—Jak appeared to be paying rapt attention.
“I must apologize for the time I have taken,” the baron said as he entered. “While I was attending to your quarters, something came up that needed my immediate attention. Ah, that is such a magnificent painting,” he continued, changing the subject swiftly as he approached Jak and Doc.
Not so swiftly, however, that it escaped J.B.’s notice that this was the second such sudden occurrence since their arrival. He would have laid jack on it being to do with the coldhearts they had crossed earlier.
Meanwhile, the baron had reached Jak and Tanner.
“I have always admired the way in which the seemingly random patterns leap off the canvas and assault the eye, imposing their own kind of order with their textures, which seem to regiment the unregimented and so reflect the way in which we try to bring order to the chaos of the world. A subject that, as I’m sure you’ve realized, is dear to my heart.”
“Well, quite,” Doc murmured.
Jak fixed the baron with an impassive yet unblinking stare. “Look like someone puke on cloth then put glass on,” he said simply.
“Well, quite,” Doc said again, this time doing his best to suppress laughter.
If the baron was nonplussed, he held his peace. Without pause, he said, “You must be weary, after such a long day. There is little more we can discuss tonight. Perhaps you would like to rest now, and I can assure you that we’ll go into details tomorrow regarding the way that you can assist me while you’re here.”
“We’ll have to discuss that,” Ryan said warily. “First thing is we’ll want to know what you’re doing, and mebbe see a little more of the ville. Seems like a lot that we haven’t seen as yet.”
“In good time,” Arcadian assured him.
“It’s still kind of early,” Mildred said, gazing out the window. “Maybe we could take a little look around now.”
The simple, innocent request was met with a surprising vehemence.
“No,” the baron barked in the kind of tone that suggested he brooked no argument. “That isn’t possible. You’ve already seen this section of the ville, and there are others that we have to secure from each other at this time of night. It is for nothing but the protection of those who live there, and to visit would be impossible.”
“Why, pray tell, do you find it a necessity to cordon off areas of this ville?” Doc asked mildly. “I would not have thought, from what you have said, that—”
“There have been a few problems lately. As I mentioned earlier, not everyone can see the common good when it’s being served. It’s a temporary measure, but nonetheless, while it’s in place—” he took in a deep breath, calming himself “—then it’s perhaps best if you wait until the day, when all sectors are once more open. Now, if you would follow me, I’ll show you where you’ll be staying while you’re my guests.”
In a gesture that told them any discussion was at an end, he turned on his heel and exited the room. Exchanging glances that carried on a conversation, the companions followed. Ryan’s mind held questions: what was the baron’s notion of common good, and who did it serve best?
They would find out soon enough. For now, they would be best to rest and take the next day as it came.
Following Arcadian, they moved along the corridor and around the balcony hugging the walls of the lobby, taking another corridor. The well of the staircase was dark and empty, the rooms on the ground floor out of commission until the morning. Shadows of sec men moved below. Almost out of habit, each of the group made note of them.
The corridor was dimly lit, and Arcadian threw open three doors, adjacent to one another. There were two beds in each room. And again, Mildred was struck by how much they had been modeled on middle-class suburban households that she had known in her previous life. It felt like she was stepping onto the set of an old sitcom. Yet how could she explain to the others how strange this was? A man of wealth who acted like a late twentieth-century suburban everyman in his tastes. Here, she felt, was the key to Arcadian.
To the others, however, the rooms were clean, comfortable and, despite their misgivings, inviting. If they had to stay under the baron’s roof for one night, then let it be like this.
He guided them in pairs, very deliberately allotting rooms to Ryan and Krysty, and J.B. and Mildred, leaving Jak to room with Doc. They allowed him to take the lead: without perhaps realizing as much, he had once more given away that he had prior knowledge of their lives.
They were all, in their ways, relieved when the baron left them alone to rest.
“S HOWERS. THIS IS SO weird, lover. It’s like being in a redoubt, or one of those places that has been preserved from before the nukecaust.”
Krysty walked, dripping, from the ensuite bathroom toward the bed, on which Ryan already reclined. He didn’t answer her for a moment as it had been a while since they had both the time and circumstances to relax like this. Her skin glistened in the gentle light cast by the overhead shade, water droplets hanging pendant from curves that swept out in sensual lines from the vertical. The red triangle between her thighs carried glittering diamonds of water, beckoning to him. He felt himself stir in a way that had been for too long it seemed, a luxury.
Ryan had already been under the shower, letting the heat of the water ease his aching muscles, playing out the strain that he had incurred earlier in the day. Krysty had seen the way in which he carried his damaged leg, and had been glad to let him take the first shower while she searched the room for hidden listening or viewing devices. If there were any, they were too well hidden for her to find. And given the searching they had all done over the years, that suggested they could speak relatively freely.
She had indicated this to him when he emerged, toweling himself down, and she had taken his place. Content to trust her judgment, he had settled himself on the bed, letting the tension that had been eased by the needle-sharp points of water seep out of him as the soft mattress yielded to his hard body.
While he listened to her singing in the shower, he let his mind wander. His fatigue was such that he couldn’t focus on their situation beyond the fact that he had a beautiful woman naked in that shower, and she would soon be coming to him. No doubt she could tell that his mind had been idly wandering. A smile quirk
ed the corner of her mouth.
“You listening to me, lover?”
“Hmm? Yeah, sure,” he replied, his voice thick and heavy with imminent sleep.
“Oh, no.” She laughed, the last droplets scattering from her as she took two quick strides across the room and landed herself next to him on the bed. “No, no, my man. If you can’t talk about the situation we’re in, then there is no way on this earth that you’re going to waste comfort and space like this by just sleeping.”
“But I’m tired, and we need to rest,” he said, half joking in protest.
“You might be tired, but who says I need to rest,” she purred huskily, her hand reaching down to stroke him. “Well,” she continued in mock surprise as her fingers found him, “you’re not that bastard tired, are you?”
Now it was Ryan’s turn to chuckle deep in his throat. “Mebbe not…”
“Should we chill that light?” she murmured in his ear. He didn’t reply for a moment as his mouth was occupied with her breasts. When he finally spoke, his attentions had caused her to forget the question.
“NOTHING,” J AK SAID FLATLY.
“Come now, you are unsettled by this place. I can see that. Your instincts are much stronger than mine. If you have any idea—”
“Nothing say. Not now. Mebbe later,” Jak interrupted. His red eyes flickered around the room.
“Ah…yes,” Doc muttered, nodding sagely. “True, true, we cannot be assured of any privacy. Perhaps now is not… But I confess, I like this place. I know why I like it. It reminds me of, well, of home. But it should not. Not here and now. It is all wrong, in that sense. But because of that… Well, confusion is as good a word as any. I cannot tell if there is any real danger in what is happening. My sense of unease comes from a deep-seated kind of angst, you see, and—”
