"Why else would they be here?" I asked one evening as we sat to dinner. "Old Marie got sick, everyone knows that much. Then she was gone. The Seekers didn't come until after she got sick. But no one remembers if they showed up before Marie disappeared or not."
"I'm not saying you’re wrong, my sweet." My father took a sip of water and pointed at me. "But I'm not saying you're right, either."
Normally, we would go on like this for a while, him encouraging me to think through to a conclusion. Not that night. His mind was somewhere else.
The next morning, my sister Jyen began to vomit. At first, she just couldn't keep any food down; soon she began to dry heave. It went on for a couple days. My mother insisted it had nothing to do with the disease. There were no rumors of vomiting going around the settlement. Still, they kept my sister isolated. You can never be too careful with Seekers.
Her condition worsened. Jyen needed a doctor, but we couldn't take her to one. If we sent for one, the Seekers would get wind of it. We took turns caring for her. If it was contagious, my mother argued, it was too late. I remember sitting in her bedroom, holding her head in my lap, a damp washcloth in hand, massaging her forehead. She asked me to tell her stories, so I did. Every story I could think of, silly ones to make her laugh.
One morning, about a week later, someone knocked at our door. My father answered it, and the look on his face told us all who it was. I ran up the stairs and into my sister's room, where she lay sound asleep. It was the first time she'd really slept since the illness came. My mother sat by her bedside, a finger brushing at her hair.
"She's through it now," she said, a small smile touching the corners of her mouth.
I tried to say something, to warn her, but my father grabbed me from behind. I kicked and pulled, twisting to get away. A Seeker strode past, silvery cloak billowing around him even here. He wore a spectacle device across his eyes, the sun glinting on the screen as he entered the room. He approached the bed where my mother sat.
"Mom!" My voice was hoarse. "Mom, don't let them take her."
She just stood and moved away. My father held me despite my struggling to get free, to go to my sister. He wrapped his arms around me. The Seeker stood over Jyen's quiet form for a moment, voice murmuring just quietly enough that we couldn't hear what he said. Something beeped, and I saw a line of blue light scan over her body. After that, he turned to look at my father. He said nothing, but my father stumbled just a bit. He pulled me back out of the room, my mother following behind.
"No!" I screamed, kicking at my father, clawing at his face. "No, they can't take her! She's better now! Mom, please. Please make this stop. Please!"
She just stared at me, her eyes blank. She moved slowly, head tilted to one side, mouth hanging open. That stilled me. The look on her face. No tears, no audible cries. The silent cry of a mother who has lost a child.
They took Jyen that day. They gave us the name of a hospital in the central district she would be taken to, along with instructions for applying for travel papers. Those papers never came. We never saw her again.
#
My mother was never the same. Something inside her died that day. My father did his best to take care of us, but he seemed lost, distracted. I remember walking in to the kitchen to find him standing over the cooking glass, staring at the wall. Whatever he had been preparing lay ruined, the smell filling the house and drawing my attention. So, I took over some things. That's the day life asked me to grow up. We needed a mother, so that became my role.
My brothers, thankfully, didn't seem to mind me doing that. Maryn, the youngest, was seven cycles old, Donovan, the next oldest, two cycles my younger. We all grew up a lot that season.
My father finally returned to his work, although he spent less time away from the house. My mother still mourned, he told the citizens. We all got out a lot less after the Seekers took my sister. Donovan suspected someone had ratted on us and brought the Seekers to take her. Trying to reason with him was no use, as he became very stubborn and angry. He never said anything where Maryn could hear. My only hope lay in my father talking some sense into him, but he would just grunt and go back to work whenever I mentioned it.
So, we lived, a sad, broken family trying to put things back together. Each day left me more tired than the last, filling me with dread of what the next day might bring.
One day, my mother stopped eating. Nothing we did could convince her to eat. She would sip water, so I tried making a broth for her. She just turned her head away and rolled over, ignoring my pleas to eat. Soon, getting her to drink water became a chore. And the fits began. She would just scream, howling cries that echoed through the house. Sometimes my ears convinced me my sister's name was in those cries.
My father and I tried to calm her. Donovan did his part and kept Maryn away from her. When a fit came on, he'd gather our younger brother up, and they'd vanish out the door. Still, Maryn knew something was wrong. We all did. We begged my father to find some help for her, but he refused. The Seekers would come take her for sure, he insisted.
A week after the fits began, his fear came true. The Seekers took my mother away.
#
I held up a hand and Micaela paused.
"Was she actually sick?"
She shrugged. "Who knows? It didn't matter to them. Something was wrong with her, so they took her away."
"Didn't the people in the settlement do anything?"
She chuckled softly. "Those people. They're all talk." She leaned forward, pointing a finger at me. "They claimed to be frontier types, rugged, tough, not needing the trappings of civilization to survive." She smacked her hand down on the table. "Hypocrites! All of them. As soon as the Seekers showed up, they all got in line and bowed their heads. Not one dared stand up to the Central Dominance, not openly. They were all talk."
She stopped speaking, breath racing through her nose as she stared off toward the window.
"Did they tell the Seekers about her?"
She shrugged. "Probably. Who knows how they knew? Those buildings had thick walls. You couldn't hear her outside." She closed her eyes and sank down in her chair. Her shoulders slumped forward. "They heard her that day, though."
#
Her screams echoed throughout the streets as they left. Maryn and Donovan spent the day out of the settlement. Feeling helpless, I went to find them and wandered the desert. A small canyon, a gully hollowed out by the wind near a tall rock outcropping, opened up before me after much walking. From atop the formation, I could see for leagues, from the central mountains in the north to the edge of the shell to the south. I sat there for hours, watching the core-light reflect off the distant water shield protecting us from space overhead. That shell orbits higher than any other does, so we can see the water shield. My mind wandered, pretending it could see the surface in detail, imagining waves crashing back and forth. I pondered what it must be like to sail along the water, as legends told the ancient world had done.
Not anymore. Humanity didn't have boats. And I had no mother. In that moment, I felt more alone than ever, and my heart broke under the weight of it. I curled myself into a ball and wept. The tears flowed until there were none left and I just lay there.
Eventually something clicked in my head. Maybe it was the thought of my brothers looking for me. Maybe the thought of my father and how he must feel. To this day, I'm not sure what it was, but one thing was certain: they needed me.
So, I dragged myself down from that rock and made my way home. My brothers had returned from the desert. Maryn sat weeping in a corner, Donovan standing over him. My father sat nearby, head in hands. My family, or what was left of it.
In that moment, yes, I could have quantified hope. Three. Three people was all the hope left to me. Yet, even that was fading. I knew if any more of my family was taken, hope would not last.
Little did I know how much I would lose.
Chapter 5 - Wrong Question
After that,
my father became very distrustful of the network. As much as he loved the system, he became more and more suspicious that someone was using it to monitor everyone. He had no proof, try as he might to find some, but that didn't stop him from acting. Soon after they took my mother, he woke me up in the dead of night, told me to pack my belongings and get ready to leave. I stumbled around in the dark, cramming everything necessary into one bag before leaving to check on my brothers. We all met, bleary-eyed and blinking in the hallway, bags in hand.
My father led us out of the house into the night. The dim core light reflecting off the water gave us means to see, but just barely through the night shield. We slipped from the settlement into the desert, my father refusing to tell us where we were going, just grunting and continuing to move. We traveled for a long time, but one thing was clear: we moved in circles, the settlement always to our left. Just when the night shield was about to lift and the full core light return, my father stopped walking. On the last circuit, we’d moved closer to the settlement, and now we stood, quiet as the night, backs pressed against the smooth wall of the settlement's primary water control station.
Most people avoided the tall structure standing along the settlement’s northern edge, a Seeker outpost adjacent. Why we were here, only my father knew. After several moments at that wall, my father motioned us to wait and moved toward the entrance. A single door granted access into the tower on the settlement side of the building. We waited, straining our ears for any sounds.
My father returned moments later, padding along in soft-soled shoes. A breath I hadn't realized I was holding slipped out. He waved at us to follow, then slipped back toward the entrance. We made our way into the structure, and the door slid shut behind us, sealing with a faint shift of metal in the wall. The main floor of the control station held a single large network touch screen. The translucent panel stood before me, facing away toward a chair. Beyond the terminal, a set of stairs spiraled up to the second floor. The Ancients that designed the stations long ago had lacked imagination. We would find the equivalent to living quarters: kitchenette, washroom and several sleeping quarters on the floor above that. They meant the station to be self-sustaining, as it was much older than the settlement and meant to stand alone.
My father held a finger over his mouth then nodded toward the stairs. All of us ascended to the second level, where my father touched a panel, closing a door hidden in the floor.
"We'll be safe here," he said. "Micaela, figure out what supplies we have. Donovan, get Maryn settled in a bed. He looks dead on his feet. I need to think."
"Why are we safe here?" I asked, not moving. "Are we in trouble?"
My father shook his head. "No, not in trouble. Just safer here." He sighed. "No unwanted eyes."
The place looked sufficient, but drab and very simple. I couldn't put my finger on it, but Donovan saved me the trouble.
"No computers."
Looking around proved him correct. This had to be the first room I could recall that didn't have a network access panel of some kind.
My father nodded. "And a little privacy to boot. Get to it."
We settled in to the water control station. My father made appearances of returning to the house over the coming few weeks. When asked how long we would have to stay in the control station, he would say, "Until the eyes go away." I pressed him for some meaning, but he never offered more than that.
A routine of sorts took over our lives. We'd start each day with our lessons, but my father would interrupt Donovan and me - one of us in the morning, the other in the afternoon - to help him with a problem. Beyond these occasions, he forbade us going near the network station, a point of contention between him and me, you can imagine. That machine held a special draw for me, so full of knowledge and possibility. Still, he insisted, and despite my disappointment, I acquiesced to keep things calm. When my turn would come, however, I leapt at a chance to be near the terminal, even if for but a moment. Father would show us data, information that was related, but he wouldn't tell us how. He'd let us look for a moment, then take us away. Each evening, as we ate, he would ask us what we learned from the information.
"Honestly, I'm having a hard time seeing a connection," Donovan said at dinner one evening. "A little context would help."
My father just sat there, eating in silence. Donovan shrugged and looked at me. I decided to try a different tack.
"Maybe if you told us why you want us to look at the data, Father." He paused to contemplate my statement. "We can see it's important to you. We just want to help, and, to do that, we need a little nudge."
"All our lives depend on that information," he stated and returned to his meal.
I pondered his words, shuffling the data in my head. "Water?"
He smiled, a small act just touching one side of his mouth. It was the first time he’d done so in weeks.
"Now you have your context." He pushed his plate away and stood up. "I've got a bit more work. Chores before anything else."
He left us and returned to the workroom below.
"Nice guess," Donovan whispered.
"It wasn't a guess. It's the only answer to his clue."
Donovan frowned. "Still doesn't help me with those numbers."
"Me either." I spooned a bit of soup into my mouth, hardly noticing the taste. "But there's something there. Why else put us to it?"
Donovan shrugged. "He may not be right in the head. There may be nothing to what he's showing us."
That earned him a glare, after glancing once at our younger sibling eating at the end of the table. Maryn seemed oblivious to the dinner topic.
"He may be sad, but Father's just as sharp now as he's ever been," I retorted.
"Calm down, Sis. I didn't mean anything by it." Donovan glanced at Maryn. "But he has been acting odd. Moving us here, for example."
"He's scared. We all are."
Donovan nodded. "But he's the adult. He's supposed to set the example."
"He's doing the best he can. He just lost his wife and daughter. You think you feel bad; imagine how he must feel."
Maryn looked up from his food. "I miss Mommy."
That ended our conversation. Donovan cleared the table while I took Maryn and put him to bed. I went to my room, one of the three in the building, and lay down myself. I stared at the wall for hours, contemplating numbers, water, and my mother. Just as sleep began to take hold, it struck me.
I pushed myself out of bed and went downstairs. My father sat at the network screen, staring at a large data set. The now familiar script of the computer screen dominated the panel from one side to the other.
"A thought, my dear?" my father asked, not taking his eyes from the panel.
"Someone's stealing our water."
#
My father stopped what he was doing and turned to look at me. "Explain."
So I did. He brought up the numbers and listened to why I thought it referred to our water. I extrapolated the data out to the potential conclusion.
"The only thing I don't get is, why?"
"You can't think of any reason someone would want to steal our water?" he asked.
I shrugged. "Short of forcing us all to leave?"
He raised one eyebrow.
"They want us to die?" I asked.
This time he shrugged. "Either one is a good reason. Another is they don't know it's happening."
"Or they do, and they can't stop it?"
He nodded. "Also possible. Or they do, but they have to do it. The point is, there are a lot of reasons why it could be happening."
"How long do we have?"
My father sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "It's hard to tell from here. Cycles, possibly, unless the rate of decline suddenly accelerates."
"The data shows it's been steady for years now," I said, pointing at the panel.
He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips in thought. "And that leads us back to why. If decline's intentiona
l, it's been at this rate to hide it. If it's not, then who knows why the rate's been consistent. Whatever the cause, we need to assume the rate can suddenly change."
"What do we do?"
He smiled, another small one, gone in an instant, but I did see it. "We find a way to steal it back."
So we set to it. Over the coming weeks, we worked together to break apart the network coding and figure out how it worked. I say “us,” but the lion's share fell to him, as he understood the system better. He kept me there for a set of fresh eyes on the rare occasion when he got stuck. I didn't complain, as it let me near the network, even if vicariously.
Donovan took to keeping Maryn out of our hair. The two of them became almost inseparable up in the water tower. Once the Seekers lost interest in our settlement's supposed outbreak and left, my father let us leave the station. The two of them would escape out into the desert for hours on end. I chose to stay with my father. The work helped me not think of those lost to us, during the day, at least. Nights were a different matter, involving many tears and no sleep. It was the only time for tears. The rest of the time, my family needed a strong face. Well, it seemed they did.
Several weeks later, my father cried out in surprise. Lying on the cold floor behind him, I had just closed my eyes, the code dancing in my mind from all the time spent staring at it. He stood partway, hands raised overhead.
"I think I've done it!" he said, waving me over and sitting back down.
I scrambled to my feet. My father highlighted the bit of coding we'd wrapped our brains around for the past three days.
"The control code?"
"No, that proved impossible to alter, as you said," he answered, nodding at me. "So, I tried something else." He pointed to another part of the screen. "Can you spot it?"
Rise: Tears (Future Worlds Book 1) Page 4
