by Gwynn White
For another five kilometers, they walk through the forest of firs, it doesn't let up. From time to time, Henry sighs, until one point where he stops and points at a small but distinct trail ahead.
"Looks like you were right," he says. "This is different."
They follow the track as it grows larger and larger, and they reach what looks to be the entrance to a tiny bridge, under cover of more trees and chirping birds. It's like another world, not at all part of the silver-dust streets of Allenda city, and just a few short hours away from the city at that. All the overgrown nature makes Petra's program analyze and study harder, but she doesn't find anything threatening.
They walk on the outer part of the bridge though, at Henry's insistence. "I don't want to be caught under—that thing," he says as he fights a shudder. The way through the bridge would have been shorter, per Petra's analysis, but she doesn't insist. She knows when an Allendian is terrified, and this is the best term to give Henry right now.
They walk past the bridge and an hour later, come to another wall of trees. Smaller ones this time, less dense. Beyond it though, Petra senses a larger structure. She walks through with Henry on her side.
They both stop with an audible sharp intake of breath from Henry as they stare up at the house looming on the hill, quite unlike any other structure Petra has analyzed in Allenda.
"What—is—this?" Henry says as he stares up at the monstrosity of a home. It rises up to the sky, bigger than any other home he's ever seen outside of the square buildings in the city.
The walls are white and dark brown, with hints of blue. Ten stairs lead up to its front door, which is also an off-white. Henry counts fifteen windows across its front.
"Who—what would live in this thing," he asks as he steps forward, but Petra's hand on his chest stops him from moving ahead.
"My analysis is incomplete," she mutters as she stares at the home. "It is not safe for you to continue until it is."
He stops and watches her calculate whatever it is she needs to calculate. Then, when she makes no signs of moving in any direction, he decides to plop onto the grassy ground and wait. He knows better than to go against a robot's recommendations. Still, he counts the minutes, he can't wait to get in there and see just what they're dealing with.
"She's not in there," Petra finally says, "Sidney isn't inside that home, but others are. One of them has the flu." She doesn't question why her scanner works now. Perhaps it's self-healed, it wouldn't be unheard of in Allenda. All Petra thinks right now is that her scanner is back up and running, and she has a job to do so that the re-emergence can happen.
Then she marches forward, her tazer already up before Henry can say a thing. He follows suit, knowing what's to come but unable to bring up the nerve to stop her. This is her job, he tells himself. This is what she's built for, and if he tries to stop her, well that's the end of him. So he follows, dreading the next several minutes.
Chapter Twenty
Sidney
She sits up with her back against the cushy headboard. She looks down, feeling her arms and legs under the sheets.
She's dressed in a billowy soft white dress. When she brings her fingers up, they're cut short and clean—like she hasn't been scraping and scrapping out in the streets of Allenda all her life.
She puts her hands back down on the sheets and strokes the cool silky feeling under her fingertips. What is this place? A wisp of wind reaches her from the open window and she looks up as the light peach curtain billows in like a dream.
Maybe it is a dream, she thinks. That snake's poison could be coursing through her veins right now and she's frothing and dying in a dusty hole somewhere. Still, the sheets feel real enough, so does the soft warm wind from the open window.
When the door to her room opens, she pulls the sheet up to her chin and stares at the person walking through. It's the lady in a light blue dress again, though this time she's in some aqua colored one—the same style as the last one, the material covering her from the top of her neck all the way down to the floor. It's also long-sleeved and Sidney wonders if she feels hot and uncomfortable under the collar.
"Are you hungry, child?" the woman asks as she strides into the room and smiles at her.
She has her brown hair up this time, showing off a rounded face and small blue eyes.
She reminds Sidney of someone, but she can't quite remember who. It's like a memory from another time, another set of eyes maybe...she doesn't know where the thought comes from, but keeps her eyes on her, the pretty lady.
"We have lots of food. What do you like to eat?"
Lots of food? In this world? Other than the vault Petra's mentioned, other than what she pictures in her head, what this lady says makes zero sense. Still, what does she like to eat?
"Anything but bird," is the first thing that pops out of her mouth. "Or rodent or lizard or..."
The woman laughs out as Sidney continues listing the things she doesn't want to eat, all the things she's eaten all her life that she's had more than her share of, thank you very much.
"...or gizzards," is the final part.
To which the woman grins and says, "I think I know just the thing. Let's get you downstairs, if you feel up to taking a little walk. We will have a feast of everything else but what you just said."
"What else is there?” Sidney hasn't heard of there being anything much else in this world than everything she'd listed. Of course there are all the berries as well, the smaller fruits and minty leaves. Those she doesn't mind eating at all, so she hasn't mentioned them. The woman nods at her and grins wider. "Lots more in our home," she promises. "And you can have a taste of it all, as much or as little as you wish, but first, you must do something for me..."
"What's that?" Sidney asks suspiciously.
"You must tell me your name." Her eyes light up like it's the biggest secret in the world and it will make all her dreams come true.
When she replies, "It's Sidney," the woman’s smile widens, and she reaches out a small porcelain hand, waiting for Sidney to hold it.
She doesn't even hesitate. She throws the blanket off and sits up.
Eyeing her shoes at the end of the bed, she slips them on before reaching out to the woman’s hand as she grasps hers back. The skin is smooth, as soft as peaches and cream like her coloring. Sidney’s darker skin makes hers look almost see-through, and she notices a tinge of gold to her own skin, which is surprising. She'd never seen that before.
The woman’s hands are about as small as Sidney’s though something tells her she's not a little girl. Tiny wrinkles at the edges of her eyes remind Sidney of the lines her nayne had around hers.
Nayne's lines always multiplied when she'd smiled and Sid thought she looked prettiest that way. Her nayne didn't like them though—always claimed they made her feel “old.”
But Nayne was never old. To Sidney, she was fresh and young and alive. Until she wasn't.
When the lady in aqua asks, "What's wrong?" she feels tears on her cheeks and wipes at them vigorously.
She hates tears, never had much time for them. When they come, they leave her vision blurry and she can't have any of that, so she wipes them until her cheeks are sore.
"What are you sad for, Sidney?" the lady says. "Is there—someone that you miss in the world?"
"My nayne," she says. "I lost her a year ago. She died—"
"Oh poor child. I lost my nayne years ago, too! Have you been by yourself since then?"
"Most of it," she says, though something holds her back from talking about Petra or the raider. She’s reluctant to. Not until she's actually seen this 'feast’, and not until she's eaten some of it.
They're already out the door and heading down a small white hallway, with a layer of dark blue carpeting like they're walking through the night sky.
The woman’s hand, though cool at first, warms to Sidney’s touch and the latter grips it tighter, not remembering the last time she'd felt the touch of another person.
Not since Nayne—she pushes the thought away. She doesn't know why she keeps thinking of her nayne now but she doesn't want to cry again, so she takes in her surroundings and tries to focus on everything she walks by as they head to the end of the hallway.
It's empty, except for a line of pictures across one side.
She had pictures once, on her tablet, until she dropped it and cracked it and couldn't see anything on it any more. These pictures don't move though, and they’re framed in some sort of old-looking white stuff, as if they're from an ancient time. “Antique” is the word that comes to mind, though she doesn't know where she'd heard it from.
"Who are all these?" she asks. Some are pictures of little kids, some of old people unlike any others she'd met. No two pictures are the same, from what she can see. They're all featuring different Allendians from who knows how long ago.
"This is our family," the woman says. "These are part of our heritage, for it is a deep heritage of several dozens of people. This is our way to commemorate them all as they pass."
Then she points at each one. "This was Sylvia," she says, pointing to a picture of a heart-shaped face and pretty green eyes, deep and full of secrets. "She was our second cousin from another dome, she passed three years past.
"This one," she says, pointing to the picture of a bespectacled man with a small brown mustache, "was Ben the baker. Oh what a great baker he was, too. I sorely miss his cakes. He passed not four months ago."
She continues with her stories of all the other people, all the way down the hall until they finally reach the top of a stairwell and Sidney remembers to ask.
"What is your name?" Better than calling her 'lady in blue' in her head, she reckons.
"I'm Amelia, dear girl," she says with a soft smile. Then she tucks a small section of her silky brown curls behind her left ear. “But you can call me Mother.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Petra
They walk up the stairs, Petra's tazer-hand ready, Henry to her side.
At the top of the stairs, they're met with the front of the door, which appears less like a door and more like a trap, the closer they come to it.
"What now?" Henry says.
Petra continues her analysis and things don't appear as they did at first. "I'm—not certain," she claims as her brows furrow. He stares at her, then at the door.
"You said that there's someone in there with the flu, didn't you? Don't you need to go in and—I don't know—get them?"
"That is my role," she agrees, though she still does not move forward.
Her analysis tells her now that things are not what she had initially thought and she steps back from the door again, doing an internal scan.
"Something's—my systems require debugging," she concludes. "Now my scanners tell me that Sidney is in this house after all. I can not find the being with the flu...that’s not right. I need debugging."
"And what exactly does that mean?" Henry watches her confused face. "I mean, where do you need to go to have that done? Is that something you can do here? Or—"
"I need to go to the southern dome," she replies as her forehead clears and she stares back up at him. "But for now, I am certain Sidney is in this house. We must go in to find her."
She turns to the door. Seeing no bell or button, she grabs hold of the heavy brass handle—shaped as an over-sized bird of prey, and she brings it down to bang on the door.
Something shows up in her scans quickly as the sound reverberates and carries all around them, but the scan goes away as quickly as it showed up. She doesn't have the opportunity to analyze it thoroughly.
They wait.
A minute later, she brings the handle down again, and again, and again.
No one comes.
"Do we break in?" Henry asks as he places his hand on the door, as if to feel its heft under his palm. "I mean what do you need to do now? You protect the girl, right?"
Petra's head tilts to the left, then she pauses. Her training tells her to protect Allendians, unless they have the flu, to keep them safe and secure until the re-emergence happens. Her training does not indicate she has to keep all Allendians in her keep until the re-emergence, long as she knows they’re safe.
However, this much is clear to Petra—her current task is to bring the girl to the vault of food, and then bring her to the southern dome to have her blood tested.
So, go into the house, they must, she decides.
All this happens in a span of a few seconds. Petra steps as far back from the door as possible, then speeds forward faster than Henry can see.
She's already through the door before he knows what she's done. The wooden slab that looked near-impenetrable to him crashes to the floor beyond with a loud bang and shudders dust into the air as Petra steps over it into the room beyond.
It only takes Henry a moment before he follows her footsteps, and walks into the vast entry hall of the house.
"Woah," Henry says, as he takes in the fifteen foot ceilings, chandeliers, and—twenty feet ahead—a staircase that takes up the entire east wall, leading up to who knows how many bedrooms beyond.
"How does a place like this belong—here?" Henry asks.
Petra doesn't respond, but knows his meaning. This massive home doesn't fit with the overall look of Allenda. In fact, in all her years living on the planet, she'd never come across anything so vast or full of older furnishings.
"The build," Petra says, "is illegal and unusual. It does not make sense."
"How long do you reckon it's been here?" Henry says as he turns, his eyes roaming over the walls of the place.
Petra analyzes the materials in the wall, the timber floors, and the paint. "Inconclusive," she replies. "They are not made as they appear. This is—some illusion of sorts I haven't seen before."
She sees that some of it is made of the same metallic powder she is, an Allendian creation of microscopic nanites, silicon, and mimetic poly-alloy compounds unique to the planet. She doesn't understand why it was combined in this manner. "This isn't something the Allendians do," she states.
No matter how much she analyzes the stuff, it doesn't register what it is or what its purpose is, other than to appear as an old-style home unlike any she's seen in Allenda.
"How old are you anyway?" Henry blurts, taking her momentarily out of her analysis of the walls. Clearly, she's built to look like a twenty-something woman, but his meaning is clear—how long ago was she built?
"Two hundred and three," she replies.
Before Henry can respond, someone coughs just three meters away and they both turn.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sidney
Nayne always told Sidney to eat all her food right away, try not to keep too much of it around, else it would turn bad before she gets to it.
However, when they walk into a new room and see a table full of food, she knows that's not about to happen this time. Because the thing is filled with so much food, it would take her a whole year, she reckons, maybe two, to finish it all.
Even then—why is there so much food on the table? There's only her and the other lady. Are they gonna eat all this up?
The table is one long piece of solid wood, it could seat over thirty people. Its entire surface is covered under so many full platters, she looks for indentations in the ground, under the mere weight of the thing. But the floor is solid, all wood and stone in some portions.
"Who else is coming?" Sidney asks. She ignores the fact that the lady told her to call her "Mother" because that's not likely to happen. She had a nayne, there's no one else. Why would she ever call someone else Nayne when Nayne was the best mother the world ever did see?
"What do you mean?" Amelia says.
"I mean there's too much food on this table for just you and me. So who else is coming to eat with us?"
Amelia tilts her head again and offers a bigger smile. "No, no one else is coming. Not right away, but please, help yourself."
Sidney takes a deep breath and relishes in t
he smells she's never experienced before. She can't quite describe any of it. It's too much for her senses and she wants to leave the room and come back in several times just to smell it for the first time over and over again.
"Are you wondering where you should start?" Amelia says.
No, she thinks. She was wondering how something like this could exist anywhere in the Blue Dome, just hours from where she's been scrounging for food along with her nayne for the last several years. They didn't always stay in the same place. Where was this back then? Why did they never find it and why did they have to suffer for so long when they didn't have to?
"I suggest you start down one side of the table," Amelia says, "then move your way across. That way you get to have a taste of absolutely everything we have to offer."
Sidney's belly growls in agreement, but for some reason she can't make her legs move.
What is it that makes her hesitate? She tries to push back the growing discomfort in the back of her head, like a niggling voice that warns her to be careful. She has no reason not to trust this lady, after all. She's kind, she's offered nothing but comfort and friendship and food.
So—what is that?
Then Sidney remembers where she was before she woke up in this bizarre home, remembers a baby in a structure, the snake.
"What happened to that baby?" she blurts as her feet stay put. "And the thing that bit me? The snake—"
"Snake!" Amelia says. "There are no snakes around these parts!" Her eyes flash, like it’s the most amusing thing in the world, but Sidney catches when she answers, her eyes dart left then up to the right, so Sidney decides not to believe her. Why would she lie?
"But—"
"We found you ill in the forest, faint probably from hunger, from thirst. Then we brought you here. Looks like you've traveled a ways. Maybe that was a hallucination—"
