Fortune's Detour: Prequel of the Deka Series by Abigail Schwaig

by Abigail Schwaig

  The medium of choice was decided. A scrap was lit in my trash can full of crumpled sheets of drawings that I had deemed unfit for the online gallery. I breathed a sigh of relief- it would take a while to burn the house down from my small, nonflammable trash can.

  It felt so weird, to be held captive by an enemy who didn’t know he held you captive. And in your own closet.

  I watched, anxiously, as the trash fire seemed to catch into blaze quicker than I anticipated. This was concerning.

  And then Grease-man did something unthinkable. He rifled through my carefully stacked pile of artwork and started chucking them into the fire.

  NO! I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to beat his oily face with my fists! He was destroying my art, my life, my soul!

  I made up my mind. I shoved the door open and ran straight for the man. I hardly knew what I was doing. Half blinded by fury, I attacked him. I had the upper hand where surprise was concerned, but he had brute strength on his side. I quickly realized this was going to end in my speedy demise. I glanced from his surprise and anger to

  David’s masked expression. I turned and ran, whipping through the back door while shouts and heavy steps echoed from within.

  I gasped and scrambled up and across the high, grass-covered dune that jutted out from the land behind Gran’s house. I gripped the Comms in my fist, hardly remembering it was still in my grasp. The thought that my best artwork pieces were in the virtual gallery did little to assuage my grief. I wanted the tangible copies. I wanted to feel them and know that they were alright.

  Gunshots brought me back to the present and I sank down, pressing myself into the ground. The sand should have burned my cheek where I pressed it down to the ground, but the adrenaline was working its magic. I didn’t feel a thing. If I stayed still, they wouldn’t know I had climbed up here. Even David didn’t know about this place. In the top of the sand dune, there was an indentation. Not too large, but a dip that was impossible to see from below. My body slid right in with my legs curled under me. The grass was sparse and tenaciously clung to the sand and rocks beneath it that made up the heavy dune.

  I focused on calming my breathing.

  The gunshots had stopped and I heard muffled voices, I couldn’t tell where from.

  I remembered Sam was still on the other line. I pressed the Comms to my ear and whispered, “Where are you, Sam?”

  “The real question is where are you?” he replied, voice tight. “I’m in front of your house- it’s on fire.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Please tell me you’re uninjured.” Sam’s taut face greeted me as he helped me down from the dune.

  I was suddenly aware of my skirt hampering my movements.

  He took no notice, reached up, and sliding his hands around my waist, lifted me down with minimal sand rash to my legs.

  All of a sudden my bare feet started protesting the desert heat of the sand. “Ouch.” I hopped around a little bit, looking as ridiculous as I felt, no doubt.

  Sam didn’t pay any attention to my awkwardness and helped me to a patch of dust weed, the kind that flourishes in sandy environments on the Quadrant planets. It’s soft and surprisingly succulent and green. I guess it finds miraculous nourishment in the depths of the ground.

  Anyway, my feet were safe, Sam was hovering, and Gran’s house was burning down. Along with the house were my paintings, camera, and clothes.

  “There go my shoes,” I muttered, shielding my face from the inferno. My adrenalin finally let down; I felt like a limp noodle.

  “They’re just possessions, Natalie. Nothing’s worth your life.” He stood near, an arm ready to stop me if I dared to dash into the death trap. But even I could tell it was too far gone for anything of value to remain. Besides, what was a barefoot girl going to accomplish by burning to death? I shook my head. “I may be irrational, but I’m not a complete spacer.”

  He nodded grimly.

  “Did anyone see where David and the skeggars went?” I wrapped my arms around myself to bolster my courage.

  Sam seemed to be efficiently expediting the search. “If they’re still hanging around they will be caught and if they left anything behind, it will be found. Don’t worry.”

  “My ID is in there,” I commented, gesturing to the dying down blaze. The fire-hazard personnel had already gotten a firm grip on the wild flames and were in the process of calming it down, as one soothes a swollen blister, by covering it completely with a wet, cool compress. They were using heat shields.

  “You already have a new one; complete with new name, new information, new everything.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “The Federation has welcomed you into their witness protection and relocation program.”

  “But won’t I have to be taken into some sort of custody-?” All of a sudden I remembered Sam’s status as a peacekeeper. I could have kicked myself.

  “Consider it done.” He nodded, giving me an inscrutable look. For an instant he seemed to display a ghost of a smile, and then it was gone in a flash.

  ~

  Sam walked me to his car and offered me one last Comms call as Natalie Pryce before I

  “disappeared into the system”. When he said it that way, I started to panic and felt a tight knot rising up my throat. But I got a grip long enough to call my mom and let her know I was fine, just would be gone for a while. Sam had talked to her first; that’s why she gave no argument. She sounded subdued, like she was about to cry. I wanted to as well; I didn’t realize how much I missed her voice.

  From what she said, Sam had been supportive and assuring of her every concern. He even had a squad show up at her house to talk to her and provide protection for the rest of my family if they chose to relocate with me. Dad nixed that in a heartbeat. They hadn’t heard anything of David, and so they hadn’t seen him or been seen with him or even talked about to David, so there was no reason for them to pack up their lives and come with me to wherever I was going. At that moment, I felt very small. Nobody could come with me, which was right, but it was still a powerful emotion of loneliness.

  The full weight of what was happening struck me, and the burden settled heavily on my shoulders.

  My friends would be told that I was dead. I would not be allowed to pursue an art degree, because David knew about that dream of mine. I was strongly encouraged not to attend college for at least several years. I would be provided with a day job once I got settled to wherever we were going and given a place to stay with another witness who had taken in displaced young adults before. Mom was completely briefed and prepared. More so than I.

  I wasn’t allowed much time to reunite though- we were on a schedule. I said goodbye, managing to do so without shredding my composure, thank Tera.

  The house was a charred ruin. Even where they were able to project a shield bubble, it didn’t save much. It was safe to say that it was gone. I closed my eyes and wrapped the first aid blanket around my shoulders tightly. At least I still had my Comms. It was shoved in my pocket. I had the feeling that if I told anyone I still had it, they would take it away from me for good. And I just couldn’t bring myself to give it up, my last object from my true existence.

  I didn’t want to watch them excavate the place and search for DNA or anything. It felt like they were doing an autopsy of the place and that reminded me too much of Gran’s death.

  Sam was standing by and he seemed to be calm, though he looked tense. “You doing ok?”

  “I guess.” I shifted forward and whispered, “Do I have to be here while they destroy what’s left of the house?” I pleaded with my eyes.

  Immediately he was in motion. “Of course not. We’ll leave now.” I wondered if he originally assumed that I would want to be there.

  Once I was safely screened within his black, Federation-issue vehicle (the only version of old-bodies with walls that were still in production), we made tracks. I leaned back in the seat and curled myself into a fist, dry-eyed, too tired to mourn my first da
y of being a witness.

  ~

  The rest of the week wasn’t much better.

  I spent six days in a detention facility designed for criminals, housed in a prison cell while they got my new life together. I had absolutely nothing to do but think. I thought I would go crazy, stuck in a vomit-hued cell all day. Sure they kept the door unlocked and open and they let me out occasionally, but not nearly enough. Once a day does not cut it for a girl raised to be independent and walk freely in the dayshine. The guards were stoic, but at least they weren’t nasty.

  Sam was there every day and we got pretty good at playing cards with each other. He even taught me how to play a few e-portal games. I told him about the Comms. Sadly, he had to confiscate it. But he promised I would get it back when the mission was finished.

  He spent as much time as possible with me, making sure I didn’t feel too much like a prisoner. He asked no questions of me, but the prison matron was not so nice.

  “Just how much does David know about your goals for the future?” The woman had a harsh line to her mouth.

  “Uh…” I hadn't exactly talked to David about any goals for the future; it was a very fluid relationship. I mean- well, we talked about photography and I mentioned an art degree at Trect. I fiddled with the tassel on my last remaining skirt. They hadn’t made me get rid of it yet, and I was ruing the day when they would. “That topic didn’t come up much.” I spoke quietly, almost too quietly for her to hear. I didn’t want her to know anything about me. “It was a summer romance. I didn’t push him for a future commitment and he didn’t push me to be sensible.”

  “Hmm.” She wrote something down on her Comms pad with a magnetic soft-tipped stylus. They worked kind of like children’s toys. I had always been fascinated with such technology. Maybe Sam would show me how to do that with the new Comms specifically designed for my persona he was promising me. Tera knows we had enough time on our hands to play around with e-portal games.

  “How would you describe your relationship?”

  There it was. The awful question. I continued wandering around my cell, touching the bars. Gripping firm, cool metal was somehow stabilizing. Just say it, Natalie. “It was almost like- we were an island for each other.”

  “An island?” She spoke as if tone deaf.

  I sighed, squeezing my eyes shut. “Yeah. That’s how I would describe ‘us’.”

  ~

  I didn’t find out until the end of the week that Sam had been petitioning the Federation for funds to pay for my relocation and protection. So the whole time I was “in prison” he had been making calls and putting my case before his superiors. I didn’t know whether or not to be horrified that I could have gotten thrown back into the jaws of the cartel in Myceania Shores.

  I settled on gratitude.

  Sam got the go-ahead and proceeded like this was a standard circumstance. I asked him about it and he said that there was no chance they would allow me to stay on the radar for David’s cartel to target. I wasn’t so sure, and my lack of faith made me more daring than usual. So I guess that was part of the start of all of my changes.

  If there is ever any good time to make a pact with yourself to become someone new, it is in a prison cell as a Federation witness, staring at your new identity spread out on the cot before you.

  I had everything. An ID card, a credit account, a new name: Nicki-Ray Silas (which I could get used to), a new place of residence with a new uncle named Tom Silas (I would be staying with him as a cover), and other little items that might be found in a woman’s purse. As I learned more about this cover of mine, the more I realized she had a distinct personality; she was different than me but not too much to where I wouldn’t like being in her shoes every moment of the day.

  Inside a black satchel were some energy chews, a lip tube that smelled fruity, and a gamer trinket to clip on the outside. Apparently part of my cover was to be an e-portal game junkie: the kind that stays up all night beating the next level. Nicki-Ray was an interesting character.

  Knowing my life depended on becoming Nicki-Ray, I studied her like an exam, which wouldn’t have worked well for me, but I (fortunately) found it easier to study a sheet that described a person than one that described abstract theories.

  Once again, I wished for my own clothes, if only to feel the comfort of home. But they were still smoldering in the charred ruins that used to be my little house on the water which was now an investigation site. I cringed at the memory of it all: the fleeing, the burning, but most of all the utter destruction of my photography and poetry.

  I sighed and tried to remain positive. At least I'm alive. At least my family is ok and completely uninvolved. At least this isn't permanent.

  ~

  4811/5/1/1

  By the time Sam had arranged transport for us to proceed to a shuttle base (we were traveling off-planet), I felt like I knew Nicki-Ray well enough to pretend to be her. At least for a little while.

  My last few minutes in the prison cell were spent going over my ID cards, just to remind myself that this was all real.

  “I’m Nicki-Ray Silas, I’m now 20 years old (instead of 21), and I recently lived in Cornish, taking care of my sick mother. She died of a lingering illness that the doctors were unable to determine.” That was good. I would have a reasonable response about why I didn’t want to hang out with anybody. I was grieving. It was a cover that I could work.

  I had a new change of clothes. Gone went my beach skirt and bathing suit and complementary prison slippers. That morning I came back from the hot shower clad in a robe, accompanied by stoic guards the whole way. It was the last day of detention and I found new articles of clothing folded nicely on top of the rumpled bed. There was a form-fitting tee made of a comfy black material. The pants were khaki and loose-fitting as the current style required, cinched in at the waist. And then there were some simple black shoes with good support and comfortable foot padding. There was some jewelry. Simple little pieces: earrings, a bracelet, a necklace and a ring for my thumb, all made out of subtly colored trinkets and natural objects, all serving to reinforce this image, this idea of who Nicki-Ray Silas was. Not knowing what else to do with the stuff, I put it all on. Just to see what it felt like. My own personal items had been discarded and my Comms had been electronically frozen and placed in storage, so I had nothing of my own to continue on with.

  It was a completely fresh start. If I concentrated hard enough, I could even pretend that the Natalie before today had never existed.

  That, in and of itself, scared me out of my mind. As I slipped on my new shoes and stared one last time at the knobby-textured pale beige floor, I came to the conclusion that Nicki-Ray was the type of girl who wouldn’t run away from a fight. I stood up and decided to press forward into the new role. I felt a surge of vicarious courage. I liked the person I was supposed to be, I just didn’t know how long I could keep up the charade and be her. But I felt I was off to a good start.

  After dressing, I threw my new things into the satchel I was given and felt my veins pulse with excitement- I was finally getting out of here!

  I glanced around at the cell that had been my home for the longest days of my life. The two solid walls and the two walls of bars were painted with a marbled texture and the floors were bare cement. The room that the Prison Matron inhabited and had interrogated me in the first time we talked was little better- blue tiles for walls and for the flooring, a white material that looked like... What was it? Scratched up plastic? Ugh. Easy to clean perhaps, but terrible for the psyche. Being a janitor here would drive anyone certifiably insane.

  I took one more look around the room, memorizing it. It was a memorial. The place where I would have to leave Natalie Pryce and forget about Lex, Aton, Mrado, Tasha, all my quirky professors who somehow seemed like family, Myceania Shores, and my own parents. And David. Soon, the Federation Peacekeepers would find him and I would be called to testify. Then it would all be over and I would be finished. The trial was all that mattered
right now, and I believed I could be Nicki-Ray until that was safely taken care of. I surveyed the space, nodding to myself. The buildup of expectation surged, creating its own form of adrenalin. My breath quickened.

  It was time to go.

  ~

  “Ready, Nicki-Ray?” Sam was starting the engine and glanced over my way, making a point of using my new name.

  I managed to crack a smile. “Yeah. Ready as anything.” My pulse was beating faster and I couldn’t explain why I felt the way I did. I felt excited. There was no emotion to it- it wasn’t happy or curious or terrified. It was kind of stoic- just like my prison guards.

  Knowing Sam now, he would have chuckled at my reply, but in that moment he was more concerned with getting me out of there alive and reinstated in a safer sector. So we were silent for a while.

  We had driven for at least twenty minutes when he brought up the living facilities at the Prison. “I know processing can be difficult. Hopefully your experience there was less stressful than fending off a break-in.” He watched out of the corner of his eye, gauging my reaction.