by K. F. Breene
“Millie?”
Millicent blinked her eyes open slowly. The handsome face of Ryker looked down on her, his electric-blue eyes holding relief. Marie peeked into Millicent’s pod a moment later, her face so angelic Millicent couldn’t help laughing.
“We made it,” Ryker said, reaching down to her.
“Did Trent make it?” she asked, standing. Her legs felt wobbly and weak.
“Yeah. Here.” Trent was at the door of the rocket, staring out.
“Roe?” Millicent asked, allowing Ryker to wrap her up into a tight hug—Marie in the middle.
“Yes. He woke me up, and then told me to get the rest of you. His was timed. Ours was not. We’ve been here for a month.” Ryker did not sound happy about that fact.
“You didn’t hurt him too badly, did you?” Millicent walked toward the door, half-terrified to see what their new home looked like.
“He’s had a month to wake his muscles up. Said he was getting ready for us. Whatever that means.” Ryker waited as Millicent walked in front of him.
Trent stepped aside, allowing her to fill the door. And then her whole body went light, and she groped for the door frame. “Is this computer generated?”
“No. This is real.” Trent leaned against the wall. “What you are seeing is what this world looks like.” He shook his head slowly. “Incredible.”
“What?” Ryker asked, trying to see around her. “Holy—”
Millicent couldn’t feel her feet as she climbed from the side of the huge vessel and walked along the platform. She couldn’t properly process what she was seeing as she traveled down the elevators, staring through the glass at the world beyond. She couldn’t greet people who were smiling and saying hello to her. And she could only blink as Roe met them at the base of the rocket site.
“You’re not a higher-level staffer here, Millicent,” Roe said, grabbing her by the arm to steer her into a ground vehicle. “You aren’t above anyone. They don’t work for you. Granted, you are quite a bit smarter, but until you run for office, you have just as much say as anyone else. Do you understand?” He turned on the vehicle, producing a sound like an electric whine, before pulling out of the parking place and into a narrow ground-bound travel way.
“It’s so green,” she said to no one, watching the fields pass by the window. “So, so green . . .”
“We don’t have a lot of tech, like I told you before,” Roe went on. “But we would love your help developing some sort of system. They’ve come pretty far, but no one has your expertise. They don’t have a fraction—”
“Roe. Shut up. Let this sink in,” Ryker said as the car went through a group of dwellings. Behind them was wide-open space dotted with live vegetation and animals. Animals!
The silence continued as everyone stared out the windows, wide-eyed.
“Here we go. This will be your living community.” Roe entered a collection of segregated dwellings, all only reaching one story off the ground. “We find it’s better to live in groups.”
Millicent pushed the vehicle door open and then watched her foot touch down on a sort of loose rock. She sucked in a deep breath, the lively and sweet smell glorious to her senses.
“Is that wood?” Ryker asked as he set Marie down, staring at the dwelling.
“Wood, yes,” Roe said, looking around with them. “Houses are made of wood here. At least in this area. In the more rocky places, they are doing better with a type of concrete block.”
“This is . . . our house?” Millicent stared at the yard—a patch of greenery with a tree at the corner. A live tree! Hanging from the branches was a swing.
She felt Ryker’s arm wrap around her shoulders. Marie squealed and ran toward the swing.
“Yes, this is yours,” Roe said.
Millicent shook her head slowly, unable to believe that she was physically standing in a setting like the ones she’d previously seen only by computer generation. She hadn’t known it was possible. “I feel like I’m dreaming.”
In the distance were rolling hills covered in that same beautiful green. Green stretched forever, it seemed. Little walkways were carved out this way and that, with ground vehicles moving along them, but most of the land was untouched. Untarnished. The sky above them was a blue like none she’d ever seen before, not even in computer-generated models, and harbored puffy white clouds. It was like the pictures of Earth hundreds of years ago. A beautiful place, full of magic and beauty. She couldn’t stop smiling.
“What are those?” Millicent pointed at a distant group of animals.
“Cows,” Roe said. “We farm here. You have a garden in back of your house. Trent, you do, too. Most people do. They—we—eat fresh food, which we try to grow ourselves.”
“I get my own house?” Trent asked, staring much like Millicent was.
“Yes. I didn’t think Ryker was the sort to share. Wait here.” He disappeared inside the house. When he came back, he was hugging three cups to his chest. “Here. Drink that.”
Millicent stared at what couldn’t possibly be a whole cup of water. “I can drink this, or . . . ?”
Roe’s smile cracked his face and sent wrinkles running. “Yes.”
The cool liquid gushed over her tongue and moved down the inside of her body. It tasted like . . . nothing. And it was the best taste she’d ever experienced.
“You found your dream home,” Ryker said, finishing his own cup of water before wrapping his arm around Millicent again. Marie laughed, a delighted sound, as Trent pushed her on the swing. The soft breeze moved her hair. “We’re safe, Millie. Our family is safe. And we are free to create more children if we choose.”
“We hope you do,” Roe said, watching Marie with a small smile. “We love children here. They’re the future, after all.”
The silence settled on them then. A bird chirped, drawing Millicent’s eyes. She watched in wonder as it flew away, leaving the tree branch shaking. Flowers bloomed around their yard, lovely and colorful. Real.
“Welcome home,” Roe said. “Welcome to Paradise.”
Epilogue
Danissa stared at the screen in a bored haze. Binary code scrolled past, presenting no interesting challenges. Her daily tasks seemed almost hollow in the absence of the Moxidone staffer.
It had been two years since Ms. Foster had dropped off the face of the earth.
Literally.
At least, that was the rumor. People said the staffer had snatched her child right out from under the conglomerate’s nose and, with the help of a lab tech and a security director, forced her way to freedom.
A life of her own. What must that be like?
Danissa sighed and glanced at the left wall. The sun glimmered off the top of a bright-blue computer-generated wave before it crashed down onto snowy-white sand. What she wouldn’t give to be on that beach.
The story of the staffer’s escape was all hearsay, of course. Moxidone claimed they had both directors, the child, and the lab tech in custody. The adults would get a mind wipe and be back at it in no time.
Her gaze flicked back to the screen.
That had been their story for the last two years, but Ms. Foster hadn’t been back online. Danissa should know. She’d searched every database out there. She’d pored over the private loop Ms. Foster had used to create all that havoc right before her log-ons went dark. Even the pirate network hadn’t revealed any secrets. If Ms. Foster was on-planet, she wasn’t online.
“Hey, did you hear?”
Danissa started as Puda strode into her office.
“Did you hear?” he repeated, his perfectly symmetrical smile infectious. He shouldn’t have been allowed on this level, but Danissa got what she wanted, and she wanted him visiting as often as possible.
“Does this look like the face of a woman in the know?” she asked, enhancing her bored expression.
“Well . . . yes, but that’s not the point.” He leaned against the imagery wall. His form interrupted a wave as it crested and then crashed down around his b
ody. “Moxidone is working on a sleek new rocket.”
“Oh yeah?” Danissa couldn’t help the surge of excitement, and she leaned forward. “Then she did get off-planet. She must have. Are they going to go get her?”
“Great heavens. Don’t get so excited. If you got out of this hellhole—” Puda winced and looked out the door. He lowered his voice, even though it would make no difference. He didn’t understand how the tech in his head worked. “If you went where things like this”—he gestured at the image surrounding him—“were real, would you want to be hauled back?”
Danissa shrugged away the tinge of guilt. “We have no idea that the other planet is much nicer. Those are just rumors.”
“Besides, why would you want her back?” He shifted position and crossed his arms over his chest. “She was insufferably arrogant.”
Danissa shrugged for a different reason this time. She couldn’t help the accompanying smirk. “She had a right to be. The woman was brilliant. She was the only one who could crack my codes. Still is. And besides—” The constant shrugging was starting to look like a tick, she was sure of it. “She’s not the only woman with a reputation for being arrogant but brilliant.”
“True enough. But you’re prettier.”
Definitely a tick. “You’re a little biased.” Danissa sat back and crossed an ankle over her knee. “How long do you think before Gregon starts on a rocket?”
“Not long. This will be a new space race, I guarantee it. And I hear Moxidone’s rocket will be massive. They’re enhancing their security, too. No more sneaking out of the conglomerate. That weird rebel group, whatever they call themselves, is dead in the water, so I hear.”
“Ms. Foster still would’ve gotten off-planet. Paired up with that director, they were the best. It would take me and . . . I don’t even know who to combat them head-to-head. Who do we have in security that could match Mr. Gunner?”
“I don’t talk to those guys. I don’t get guards like you do.”
“Well anyway.” She pulled up a map of the various solar systems and traced her finger along the path to the other planet. “Maybe they are thinking of finally colonizing?”
“Maybe. Or maybe just pillaging the natural resources. Setting up a colony would take time, and it would be difficult to oversee it from such a distance. But hauling back resources . . .”
Danissa bit her lip in thought. “Ms. Foster probably thought they were safe. That they escaped.”
“You said it yourself—she was brilliant. And Gunner was legendary. No way they thought they got away. No way.”
“I don’t know. I feel like—” Waves of disturbance rolled over the screens. The cresting wave wiggled. Pixelated blue crashed and became fuzzy black and white.
A delighted smile crossed Danissa’s face, and she motioned Puda aside. “Get out of the way.”
Confused, Puda jumped toward the doorway.
Another wave crested before wiggling harder. It distorted. The coding on the other walls dimmed. A picture of lush forest and a crystal-blue waterfall didn’t take the place of the ocean—a trick Ms. Foster had liked to play in the past. Instead, blackness reigned.
“This wouldn’t be her,” Danissa said on a release of breath, her hopes dashed.
Frowning, she turned toward her main idea board and pulled up the system logs. Confusion turned to shock, and then dread. Error codes flashed across the right screen. Alerts flared red along the top of the walls.
“What is that?” Puda asked, stepping forward.
“Ma’am!” someone shouted. “Ma’am, we have a system breach!”
Panic crept in as Danissa’s gaze flew over the foreign coding that flashed across her screen, almost too fast to take in.
“I’ve never seen that before. Have you?” Puda asked.
“Ma’am, they are in our files! They are copying our files!” her assistant shouted from her work pod.
“Who’s doing this? Moxidone?” Puda accessed his wrist screen. “What the hell—I’m locked out!”
“Ma’am, I’ve been kicked out!” her assistant shouted. Surprised gasps and shrieks erupted from the floor.
Cold trickled down Danissa’s insides as she dived toward her console. “This isn’t Moxidone. It looks like Toton wasn’t crippled after all. They are fighting back.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo ©2014 Penni Gladstone
K.F. Breene is the USA Today bestselling author of many fantasy and paranormal romance novels, including the Darkness and Warrior Chronicles series.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
