It truly was breathtaking.
My fatigue mitigated by the fluids and food I’d received in the medical bay, and with renewed energy, I focused on the primary goal; blending into the population and disappear as quickly as possible.
Flick was out there somewhere, still searching for me. There wasn’t any doubt he would continue that search until he was successful. What I needed was a new place to hide, preferably where he would not even imagine looking.
“I see they issued me brown to wear,” I said.
Hammon gave a small shrug of embarrassment. “I couldn’t alter your level until you passed the medical exam, which you did, and I brought a portable screenboard with me. Later, I can change your level to a more appropriate designation.”
That told me I would need to have sex with him as soon as possible. He wouldn’t change my level until after. Hammon wasn’t attractive, but he was gentle and smelled nice, so I concentrated on those traits.
I squeezed his arm affectionately. “Take me shopping.”
We walked through the garden paradise of New Dublin until we reached a single level plaza, round, of course, containing shops of all kinds like spokes of a wheel.
Hammon led me into a dimly lit shop with a high ceiling. Rows and rows of uniforms, tunics, and dresses stood before us, with shelf after shelf of shoes and hardly any staff whatsoever.
It occurred to me the entire city seemed to echo the emptiness of the shop. Ample structures, wide thoroughfares, a multitude of space almost devoid of human beings. We’d walked at least a kilometer and passed perhaps a dozen other citizens.
For such a large and advanced city, New Dublin appeared to have a tiny population.
Hammon tugged me into a row of blue clothing and began examining each article.
He pulled a soft blue form-fitting shirt from a clip and held it up for me. The collar scooped low, the long sleeves would be loose, and the appropriate length for an average clerical uniform.
“This is perfect,” I said. “Are there pants or should it have a long skirt?”
“There are pants with it.”
I glanced around the enormous shop. Nearly half a hectare of merchandise and one disinterested young woman to manage it. She had her back to us and was busy sorting a cart full of new items.
I offered Hammon my most brilliant smile and darted into a changing room, pulling him in after me. Luckily the small rooms had doors, not curtains, and the moment we were inside I stripped off the offending brown uniform quickly and stood up, naked.
His eyes widened. I kissed him urgently, hard and deep.
He hesitated for only a moment, but hungrily returned the kiss when he realized what I intended. When we were both naked, I propped him against the back wall and managed to climb on top of him without making a sound.
The sex was furious, fulfilling, and lasted longer than I expected. When he was finished his face disclosed delight/shock and I reveled in it.
I didn’t bother putting the brown clothing back on and dressed in the blue clerical garb instead. After discarding my cork shoes and slipping into a pair of short black boots I’d scooped up from a shoe display, I felt less self-conscious. Blue was definitely an improvement, but I still had progress to make.
Rank meant everything here. The higher the rank, the greater the chance I would be able to avoid detection. Flick, or any Grey for that matter, would have greater difficulty locating me after I adopted a more established role.
Again, this information felt correct, in spite of the fact that I had no idea how I could know it. Instinctively I knew that Flick was not the only Grey in New Dublin. There was a high probability that he was not the only person searching for me, either. The quicker I could settle into a new identity the more difficult it would be for my pursuers to find me.
Hammon was panting when we slipped out of the changing rooms and he went to pay for the garments. The disinterested shop girl studied him with a quizzical expression as he palmed her screenboard, but when the payment processed she promptly forgot about us and went back to her chores without a second glance.
“Oh, my old uniform,” I said. “I should go get it. Wait for me outside.”
Before Hammon could protest I sprinted back to the changing room to retrieve the old garment and simultaneously snatched a black sheath dress from a display clip. I tucked it inside my brown clothes. When I emerged from the shop the black dress was invisible inside the wad of brown and I carried it outside.
The professional levels strictly wore black, and that was far preferable to blue. At the proper time, I would change into the dress.
After I’d done something about my level assignment.
I took Hammon’s hand and suggested dinner.
He demurred, his face showing obvious guilt/regret.
Oh, of course. He had a partner and couldn’t be seen with me in a conspicuous place.
“I suppose I’d better change your level,” he said, slipping a portable screenboard from his deep jacket pocket. The device was slightly larger than my hand and lit up at his touch.
“Palm,” he said, holding it in front of me.
I pressed my palm on the reader circle and it signaled success with a bright, mechanical chirp.
“I made you a level 20.”
The crease in his brow, the twitch of his upper lip and the shift of his feet told me he’d reassigned my level dangerously high considering my lack of credentials. If someone discovered what he had done, he would be at risk of demotion.
“Abusing your generosity is something I will never do,” I said reassuringly. “No one needs to know how much you have helped me today.”
“If you check in at a refugee shelter they will give you housing for the night until an apartment becomes available. They are not very pleasant, but they are clean and they will provide you a meal before sending you to the work assignment center.”
“Thank you, Hammon.”
He blushed when I kissed his cheek.
As I walked away I heard his steps linger, then spin and hasten in the opposite direction.
I knew without seeing that he’d watched me walk away before hurrying off, and his hesitation indicated he had looked back at least once before turning the final corner.
Hammon had been incredibly useful, but I couldn’t count on his aid any longer.
Now I needed to find employment.
The sun was an hour or so from setting and lights winked on all over the city. Bright lights at foot level illuminated all of the walkways, stairs, and ramps, but muted lamps hung overhead. Ground level was easy to see but the tops of the taller buildings would be lost by twilight. Since I did not know the layout of the city I needed to hurry. It would be much more difficult to navigate when darkness fell.
One conviction guided me. I could not go to a refugee center. If there were a place the Greys would most definitely search for me, it would be there. I needed a secure, private space, and that meant I needed credentials.
I found a public-use screenboard and palmed the panel to activate it. The wide black screen brightened and I tapped the offered options with my fingertip until a city map appeared.
“Employment center,” I said.
The screen obediently displayed the nearest one and drew me a helpful map.
I memorized the route and set out. According to the information, the center would remain open for another half hour.
Along the way, I took a moment to hide my bundle of clothing inside a shrubbery beside an empty public bathroom. The black sheath dress would be critical later, but for now, it would only get in the way.
I stopped outside my destination and took a moment to study the building.
The interior of the employment center was easily seen from the walkway outside, and for a full ten minutes, I watched the people inside.
Eleven clerical workers staffed the center, and each one clearly demonstrated personal preferences, biases, and prejudices in small, but meaningful ways.
There was
n’t time to seduce a man, and I doubted that tactic would be successful again considering the sour look on the expressions of most of the staff. They looked jaded and irritated, and there was no playful camaraderie between them.
One woman caught my eye, though. Her attitude wasn’t helpful, or cheerful. But she did clearly show solidarity to her co-workers on a gender bias, and that bias was obviously in favor of females.
Not only that, but she showed outright hostility to her male counterparts and with that information, I marched inside and went directly to her desk.
She looked supportive/approving as I sat down. She scanned my blue clothing, identified with my level instantly, and the urge to collude positively radiated from her posture.
“I’m in trouble,” I said.
Her shoulders tensed. “How can I help you?”
With a heavy sigh, I launched into my story. “I was recently promised an employment position, but the man assigned to handle my transfer down-graded my level from 29 to 20.”
She flared. “Why would he do that?”
“He was a 25, and perhaps my level was intimidating to him. I cannot prove it, but he also hinted that if I agreed to meet him privately he would reinstate my level.”
Her fingers flew over her screenboard. “What is your name, dear?”
“Dess Steel.”
She called up my file and read the contents swiftly. “I don’t even see a pending employment task in your file. Where was your position offer?”
I swallowed, doing my best to look horrified. “He must have deleted it. I had an offer in archives.”
“Archives?” she said.
The response popped into my head and I spoke without hesitation. “I specialize in the preservation of historical materials.”
The professional term was Archivist, but I was already skirting the edge of credibility with the statement and didn’t want to raise an alarm. Claiming an offer working in archives was radically different than claiming to be an Archivist.
She tapped the screenboard wrathfully, her fingers flying. “I see a position at Arches National Archives. Was that your offer?”
I gulped audibly. “Yes! How did you find it so quickly?”
She beamed. “I checked with them first. They are a new facility, and I had a hunch.”
I forced my eyes to water. “What can I do? He lowered my level to 20. Arches won’t accept me when they see I was demoted.”
Her defeated frown worried me greatly. It seemed she didn’t have the authority to change my level.
I slumped in the chair and squeezed my eyes shut.
She looked at my stricken posture and squared her shoulders with determination. “Let me get my supervisor to do it. Stay right here.”
She headed down a hallway and disappeared from sight. It took all of my strength to keep from leaping over her desk and revising the file myself. But eyes watched me from all around the room, and something so brazen would be noticed. Not to mention her screenboard would sound an alarm if an unauthorized person tried to access it.
Perhaps twenty minutes passed, but it felt like days.
When she reappeared, victory/smug on her face, I knew she’d been successful.
Nevertheless, I conveyed worry with my tone. “What happened?”
“She authorized the change. You are back up to your original level 29 and I have some good news for you.”
“What could be better than that?” I asked.
“She contacted Arches Archives and told them we had you here with us, and that you would arrive first thing in the morning. There was some confusion about your placement, but my supervisor handled it. They added you to their staff registry.”
It was not very difficult to produce genuine looking tears. I stood up and held out my hand with a grateful smile.
She shook my hand vigorously, satisfaction/triumph written on her face.
I left the employment center and chose a tall apartment building at random.
If I was going to make it through the night undetected, I needed legitimate living arrangements. There was no imaginable way to sleep undetected in a bathroom all night in the city square and hope to go unnoticed. If a Grey was searching for me, local enforcement officers would be alert to that possibility and I couldn’t risk being discovered. A lone female wandering the streets would be noticed, particularly considering the emptiness of the walkways. There were not enough other people around to make it possible to disappear into a crowd.
I needed concealment.
Fast.
I hurried up the front steps of the apartment building and stopped just inside the doorway. The reception area looked deserted until I scanned the hallways and saw a lone maintenance worker shuffling along with cleaning supplies, and I asked her politely where the supervisor was.
She pointed to an open door further down the same hall. A light glowed from inside.
When I stepped into the office a very young man with sharp features and messy black hair glanced up.
“Yes?”
He was in a hurry, looked stressed and the last thing he needed was more work to do.
The situation couldn’t have been more perfect.
“I think I’m in the wrong building,” I told him.
He looked at me over the top of his oval glasses. “Oh?”
“The employment center gave me the address of my new apartment, but I must have come to the wrong place.”
Irritated/harassed. “Name?” he asked.
“Dess Steel.”
He typed rapidly. “We have no pending request for anyone by that name.”
“Could you possibly tell me where I am supposed to be?”
Two factors influenced his next decision. First, he was anxious to avoid performing any more work than was absolutely necessary, and second, he was obviously short on time. There was someplace else he wanted to be, and it wasn’t here.
“Did you have a pending request under your name?” he asked.
“I don’t know. If you like, I could put in a request for a room here and we could start the application process.” That would take more than an hour.
The comment nudged him in the right direction, and his fingers sped across his screenboard. “No, no. I’ll be happy to locate your apartment.”
“It could be a pending request under level,” I said, trying to sound helpful.
He scanned the screenboard and I could almost make out the words reflected in his glasses.
“What is your level?”
“I’m a 29.”
He adjusted his shoulders. “There is no apartment assigned to a level 29 that I can see. At least, not today.”
The number 27 appeared in his glasses and I replied casually. “My promotion only came through this morning. I was a 27. Maybe the request wasn’t updated yet.”
Acknowledgment/relief flashed across his face. “I see it. It’s the Watership building. I am sending them a notification that you are on your way.”
I hadn’t even had time to sit down. “Thank you so much.”
He didn’t bother to respond as I left.
The Watership building appeared on the city screenboard map after I requested it by name, and I estimated it would take me at least ten minutes to walk the distance. I returned to where I’d hidden my bundle, withdrew it from the shrub and went inside the empty bathroom. I changed from the blue clerical clothing into the black sheath dress hastily. I washed my face, drank what felt like close to a liter of water, and slicked back my brown hair.
The hair. I had to do something about that.
The brown clothing had served its purpose, and what I didn’t shove into the recycle slot in the wall; I tore into small strips of cloth. After wetting my hair, which made it appear two shades darker, I quickly braided it at my temples and pulled the two braids together behind my head. Using the strips of cloth, I tied the braids together and formed them into a professional looking bun.
The blue clothes went into the recycle slot behind the brow
n uniform, and I left the bathroom wearing black, my stride long and my chin lifted high.
When I walked into the Watership building a fidgety girl in blue with a portable screenboard was waiting. When she saw me, her face divulged astonishment/fear, and I knew at once she would do almost anything I told her to do.
“I’m here for the assigned apartment.”
Her eyes scanned my black dress and she swallowed hard. “Ah, I was, um, I was told you are clerical?”
“I am in archives,” I said easily.
“Which archive?” she asked, her voice faltering.
She had not expected to see a professional in black, and her equilibrium vanished.
“Arches National,” I said, lowering the pitch of my voice.
Her upper lip suddenly beaded with sweat. “I see your position, but I didn’t, um, I didn’t know you were an Archivist. The person I was expecting was a 27.”
“That is incorrect.”
Dismay/dread tarnished her otherwise attractive features. She fully expected me to chastise her.
I smiled. “I think there was a small misunderstanding at the employment center.”
She grasped desperately for someone else to blame. “Oh? What happened?”
“The young woman assisting me was a bit flustered, and her supervisor didn’t have a kind word to say. The situation was getting out of hand and, rather than get her into trouble with her supervisor, I left before she corrected my file. She obviously intended to include my recent promotion, from 39 medical level to professional 40, but it appears she may have accidentally altered it inaccurately in her haste.”
The girl scanned her screenboard. “What is your name?”
“Steel.”
Her eyes bulged when she saw the file. “Um, you seem to be a level 29?”
I laughed. “Well, obviously it is incorrect. Is there a way you can adjust my level without getting that young woman into any more trouble? I am afraid she may already be looking at a serious demotion.”
The New Authority Conspiracy (The Keeley Dorn Adventures Book 1) Page 4
