“But I got lucky. I fell in love with your dad, even though the Royals had tried to drive all the love out of me.”
“Love finds a way, but a sexy pair of abs helps,” China murmured with a secretive sort of smile that caused Sarge to smile as well. Jay didn’t know what that meant, but the thickening layer of their emotions started to make her uncomfortable and she hastily avoided the images that threatened to communicate through the skim.
“So, I had a choice. I was a Royal Elite in the service of King Mycroft Barrett. My duty was clear. Your dad was a Rebel and a UU.”
“A what?”
“An ‘Unauthorized Union’. A child born without authorization and hidden from the nobility. If I’d been discovered as a baby, I would be a Lifer too,” China explained.
“So I could either do my duty and arrest him, turn him over to the authorities, or abandon the Royal peacekeepers and join him.”
“And you chose him,” Jay said aloud, grinning. “That’s so romantic … but … why?”
China looked at her and Jay could feel his confusion. A flush crept into Jay’s cheeks at having to explain herself. “No—you’re great Dad. I can see why mom would … um … be, you know, attracted to you.”
At her blushing, China laughed. Sarge chuckled in her quiet, warm way before continuing. “Because I wondered. I was curious about my own parents. I’d always felt rejected by them. And the peacekeeper school encouraged this line of thinking. Our parents were too uncaring to apply legally, or too stupid to plan ahead properly. They had proven they were not fit to be parents. That’s what the academy told us. Every day.”
‘But I always wondered … did they really love me and want to keep me? Had someone like me, a Royal peacekeeper, taken me away from them? I’ve come to accept that I’ll never know, but your dad made me realize I was supporting a system that didn’t believe that love could change you. Make you be a better person.”
Jay felt the familiar thinning and cooling of a well-worn melancholy from Sarge as she spoke. Reaching forward, she grabbed her mother’s artificial hand within her own smaller hand. Sarge smiled immediately, radiating a sunlight feeling of contentment and love.
“If there’s one thing I want to teach you Jay-Jay, it’s this. Leave this world with more love in it than when you arrived. I want you to be happy and safe to find love in your life. Find what makes you passionate and hold onto it, because it’s too precious and rare a thing to let go.” Sarge then scowled, her mood darkening. “But for that to happen, these inflexible rules laid down by a man who slaughtered half the world in his quest for power, have to end. This unbalanced system of nobility needs to end. So we’re Rebels.”
Stanford couldn’t help staring as the three held hands, shutting their eyes, oblivious to the room. He shifted his feet and moved some of the groceries to the coffee table. Mack wore an expression of concern, but Snake appeared at ease with the séance-like affair. He picked up the instrument—No. Sheila, it’s called Sheila, and started to play. Apparently, that was how he restored the battery.
Stanford turned to Mack, who began to move items from the shopping bags to the packs. Finding warm clothing in this tropical locale had proven difficult and more than a little pricey. The carnival also hampered their search for supplies. During the day, the city slept; those people that weren’t putting up road-blocks. Sleeping before beginning another night of partying in a few hours with the Samba parade happening only a few streets away.
“Can I help you with that?” Stanford asked.
“Sure,” replied Mack. “Listen. I’m sorry about what happened back in Florida. I didn’t—well, I meant to ask earlier. That person in your lab. Was … was she someone special?”
Stanford moved to stand beside Mack, reaching into a shopping bag and laying out the contents. It would be easy to blame these people for bringing their war to his world, but from what he understood, they weren’t the aggressors. The events in Florida were ample evidence of that.
He worried about how the US would respond. Right now, the country was probably in the same state as after 9/11. People would be scrambling to make sense of it, heightening military alert levels, and above all, searching for the force that attacked Patrick Air Force Base. He couldn’t help yet. He felt more valuable here, trying to understand these people and their mission. And frankly, he was afraid to turn on the news.
With a start, he realized he hadn’t answered, lost in his own thoughts. “No. Not special to me, but special to someone. How could they just send a machine to kill everyone?”
Mack shook her head dejectedly. “It’s what they do. The Royals don’t like opposition. Theirs is the only way. Their principles are the only ones that matter. As a citizen, I never saw it. When I became a Rebel, I saw it every day.”
Stanford sighed before turning to Mack. “Look, I need to understand more about your world. I got some on the walk down: the Five Monarchs, each with five different … gifts. Yet these Principles. What are they? Snake mentioned them before. When he called Sarge a Lifer.”
Mack stared at him levelly, slowly rolling up a scarf and stowing it away. For a moment, he wondered if she would answer.
“They’re meant to create utopia. Or King Mycroft’s version, at least. There are nine Principles. The one that’s important here is the fourth,” she replied. She lifted one of the packs onto the coffee table, removing the climbing ropes and harnesses, and began to check them for damage before continuing.
“Pass me those karabiners, would you please? ‘To become entitled to have children, citizens must prove they have the capacity and capability to provide for the child’,” she quoted.
“So, before you can have kids, you what, you have to pass a test?” He hated to admit it to himself, but he’d sometimes entertained a similar notion. Pick up any newspaper in the world and headlines related stories of neglect. He couldn’t help thinking that the gene pool needed some chlorine every now and then.
“That, and have an income sufficient to support the child. But I wasn’t finished. ‘Any child of an unauthorized union becomes the property of the crown.’ That’s what Sarge was. An unauthorized union. Of those children, less than five in one thousand are lucky enough to be adopted and become citizens. Those that aren’t adopted become Lifers, and the Monarchs house and train them. Some become servants, mine workers. Others, like Sarge, soldiers. They are trained from the age of ten for that purpose. They do all the most dangerous and dirty jobs, and they do it ‘til they die. They aren’t citizens of the realm; they are the property of the Monarch in whose realm they were born. One thing is common to every Lifer, though. At the age of ten, when it’s determined what purpose they will be trained for, every single one of them is neutered.”
“What?!” Stanford almost dropped another bag on his foot at the revelation.
“The fourth principle is population control, and it’s skewed towards the wealthy, Gifted, and privileged. The right kind of people,” Mack quipped sarcastically. “The nobility that can easily provide for multiple children. You don’t find the children of nobility ending up as Lifers. Not the legitimate ones, anyway.”
It’s eugenics, making it easy for the wealthy, smart people to have children and restricting the ability of everyone else. Christ. What an abuse of power. Stanford kept his thoughts to himself and opened another shopping bag full of chocolate bars.
“Err, where should I put these?”
“That bag there,” she indicated with a bob of her chin, hands busy with rope.
Stanford moved the bag over and opened it. A quick glance told him it was Mack’s bag. It contained the comprehensive first aid kit with its strange purple vials that gave off a dim fluorescence. In the dark insides of the bag, the purple light revealed a slight shimmer off to one side and, curious, he took a closer look: a small, metal-bound notepad.
Are these the papers Jay mentioned? With Mack busy coiling the ropes, he surreptitiously slipped it into his pocket and proceeded to pack the chocolate bar
s in the bag. “What’s with all the chocolate?” he asked, a little loudly in his nervousness.
“You noted how we heal quickly. It’s a compound, Sis-B, in those vials in my bag. It’s from the key of the Undying Queen. Stimulates a regenerative process, but taxes the body. It won’t grow back a limb, but if you’re injured and don’t die immediately, you’ll live. Over time it turns your irises purple.”
“Astonishing.”
Mack shrugged as if it were commonplace. “We need energydense foods to offset or otherwise the body ends up cannibalizing itself. Inject some Sis-B and when you get injured, eat as much chocolate as you want.”
“I don’t suppose …?” Stanford asked, holding one in his hand and examining the glowing liquid.
Mack nodded. “Sure, take one. We’ve got enough. I’ll dose everyone when those three have finished. It’s one of the few good things that come out of the Monarchs. Maybe when you get back to your people, it will do some good.”
Stanford thanked her, slipping one out and holding it in his hand. He excused himself to the bathroom, saying he wanted to wrap it carefully. Once out of sight, he took out the metal bound notepad and discovered that it contained a series of hand-drawn maps with half a dozen places marked neatly in red ink. Near the crosses was a small notation: ‘White River’. A large body of water filled the bottom of the map. If the scale was accurate, it could only be one of the great lakes.
With an idea of where the team was headed and the possible location of this mysterious world key, he stuffed the notepad back into one of his pockets, quickly wrapped the ampule in the smallest hand towel he could find, and exited.
Snake returned from the balcony and grabbed a bar of chocolate. Stanford felt the notebook in his pocket like a cannon-ball. He wanted to trust these people; they’d saved his life, after all. They even answered his questions openly once they were no longer in the military’s custody. Yet he couldn’t. They had said it themselves; they were here to appropriate these keys.
Were they the right people to have the keys? Weren’t the keys a legacy that belonged with the people of this world?
Stanford shifted his feet uncomfortably and cleared his throat. “Would you tell me more about the Royals?” At Mack’s hesitation, he continued. “Look. You said you weren’t expecting them to follow you. I’m worried about what this means. Tell me more about the war, what started it, what they did?”
“We don’t know what started it. They went after the strongest nations first,” Mack replied. “Countries need time to prepare for war. The kings had no need of that, and we didn’t even know the Queens existed until late in the war. Three men took on entire nations, and won,” Mack said before sitting down on the plush couch.
“Tell him about London,” Snake mumbled through the last of his chocolate bar as he wandered back out onto the balcony.
“England was the first nation to fall. On April 17th 1921, the three kings transferred into the center of London and leveled it in a day. They utterly destroyed every major building and announced they would be back in a week to accept the country’s surrender. England mourned the loss of King George and the Royal family and assembled as many troops as they could. 200,000 men gathered and as many warships as could fit in the Thames. They fired on the kings as soon as they appeared in what used to be Trafalgar Square. The kings killed every last one of them.”
Stanford swallowed as Mack continued, her eyes staring unblinkingly at the far wall. “You know the really scary thing? No one knew that bastard Mycroft had precognition. The kings transferred in from who knows where, knowing there would be a battle. Prepared to kill tens of thousands of soldiers, to say nothing of the collateral damage. Deliberate, premeditated slaughter. An early show of force to scare other nations so when they next tried negotiations and asked for surrender, people knew what would happen if they refused.
‘People still fought, but it made no difference and the rest of the world saw to their own defenses and armies. Or tried to negotiate with them. The kings took England in a month and then turned their attention to the rest of Europe …”
As the litany of battles and people killed continued, Stanford sat and stared blankly at the beige carpet. The death toll and destruction dwarfed World War II. Half the world had died in a handful of years before the kings finished.
It’s too much power for anyone to have. They have to be stopped. God, when I think of them coming here. But how do you stop someone with the power to level a city? Hang on a second. The 1920’s?
“How are they still alive? You said they did this in the early twenties.”
“Yeah. The Undying Queen. Ilya Romanova. No one knew what her Gift was until right near the end of the Monarch War. The kings were the fighters. It wasn’t until the last years of the war when conquered nations were tasked with building strange weapons that anyone knew about the queens. The legend is that the Monarchs didn’t even know what Queen Romanova could do. Until a bomb got dropped on one of the factories building weapons for the war effort and the queen was inside.”
“What happened?” Stanford prompted.
“Queen Ilya dug herself out of the crater without a scratch on her. She doesn’t age, hence the name, and her Gift … she can heal anything. Not only that, she has the ability to regress age in others. The ultimate reward for loyal service to the crown,” Mack said bitterly.
Everlasting life. Stanford hesitated, another question hovering on the tip of his tongue, when the teenager finished whatever she was doing. Both China and Sarge burst into tears, hugging the petite teenager and kissing each other. With a pang of loneliness, he thought of his own girls. Mack jumped off the couch and Stanford seized the opportunity to slip the notebook back into her pack while everyone was distracted.
At the cessation of tears, Mack drew Jay away from her parents to check her vitals, telling her to shield everything out so she could recover. If she’s shielding, she can’t read me. She won’t know I saw the pages. As their conversation lulled, he cleared his throat to draw everyone’s attention.
“Um … now that you’ve got your supplies and memories, I have a question. Will you tell me where you’re headed? I can make contact with my people, maybe get you some support. There’s an embassy here in Rio I can get to.”
Sarge wiped her eyes before looking at Stanford, her features unreadable. “I don’t think so. This is a secret our people have died to obtain. The Royals following us is unfortunate, but it doesn’t change things. We still have a mission to complete. One that will save your world as well as ours.”
“What do you mean?”
“When we succeed, we will go back to our own timeline. The Rebellion will finally be able to take the fight to the Monarchs themselves. War, Dr. Ellis. On a scale this world has never seen before. You don’t want that here. Just stay out of our way—we’ve been fighting the Royalty for a long time.”
She’s not wrong.
“There’s something else. I’ve been talking things over with Sheila,” Snake added as he stepped back in from the balcony. “Something China said back in Florida has been bugging me. How did the Royals know where we were? I think they have a way to track Sheila, and we’ve been here for a few hours already. Problem is the battery. I’ve been playing almost constantly to charge her and it’s not happening fast enough. We need to get somewhere loud.”
The man in the white hooded robe irritated Prince Ahmed Al Aziri as he adjusted his cards. The man kept his face covered with a mask and the cavernous hood of the robe pulled forward at all times. What he looked like under the concealment was a matter of speculation, although it was safe to say that he wasn’t a robust man. Even the fact that ‘he’ was a ‘man’ was only suggested by the ‘Mister’ at the fore of his name.
The thick robes, in Mycroft’s colors of white and gold, hung in heavy folds, possibly to obscure a thin frame. Thin wasn’t a common feature of the affluent noble-born, yet this man was the personal envoy of King Mycroft Barrett. He was a mystery, not helped
by the second thing that annoyed the prince; despite several attempts to engage him in casual conversation, the mysterious ‘Mister Delta’ had remained steadfastly mute since arriving aboard The Songstress.
Prince Ahmed had no doubt the man could speak. The Walker King spent close to an hour in private conference with him when they had first joined the crew of the lightship. Far too long a time to sit in uncomfortable silence. It was only when Ahmed started gambling with his Elites that the man even acknowledged his existence.
At first, Mr. Delta stood and watched the game progress. His men shot uneasy, occasional glances in his direction and shifted restlessly in their seats. After the second, tense hand, Prince Ahmed gestured towards the empty chair to his right, inviting Mr. Delta to sit and join in, shifting a short stack of chips to him to get him started and hoping to engage him in conversation. Nothing. He communicated with small hand gestures and tossed chips into the pot as needed. He uttered not one syllable.
His apparent, intense focus on the game paid off. Over the last half-hour, he’d built four tall columns of chips in front of his delicate, white-gloved hands.
But what is his purpose on The Songstress? mused Prince Ahmed inwardly. The prince had twenty of his father’s Elite guard. With his own Gift, their purpose was clear: capture or kill the Rebels by any means necessary.
King Heinrich chose not to use the prince or his men during the first assault against the military base in Florida, preferring an assassin drone to make a subversive entry rather than kick the door down. Too cautious by far. I expected something more decisive from the Walker King.
The Songstress had easily repelled the counterattack. This world was supremely unprepared for what Ahmed suspected was coming. Heinrich can’t see it. He only cares about the Rebels. What their reason was for traveling to this place. He has tunnel vision, the singular focus of a deeply flawed man unable to see the big picture.
Suffrage (World Key Chronicles Book 1) Page 8
