Aakil looked up at him, and Colin suddenly noticed Aakil trembling, working hard to repress tears which had formed in his eyes. “The State didn’t put those satellites into orbit, you see, they were already there.”
Like a damn bursting, comprehension came flooding into Colin’s mind. He had to reach out and place his hand on the table for support. “I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Colin, this here on the wall,” Aakil held his light up to show the strange picture hanging there. “This is a map of the United States of America.”
“No!” Colin’s hands flew upwards to cover his ears. He spun around. “It can’t be.”
“Mate, we aren’t on a colony world; we didn’t travel anywhere. We’re still on Earth.”
Colin fell to the ground, writhing on all fours. Nausea overtook him and he spilled the contents of his stomach on the floor.
It had all been for nothing. The hibernation chambers. The State separating him from Freya, his family, everything. They forced him to sleep for 22 years just to kill him.
***
Aakil cupped his hand over Colin’s mouth to wake him, but the tactic wasn’t necessary. Colin’s eyes sprung wide open; he hadn’t fallen asleep. As they had to set up camp, the pair of them had climbed out and helped their team. Colin had been grateful for the grunt work as his mind had gone too numb to make any decisions.
They set up the large tent which would house their team until they completed the shelter and headed back to their community for the winter. When Aakil had volunteered to take the first watch, Colin knew that neither of them intended to sleep. They needed to get back down there with no prying eyes or being overheard.
Once finished with camp, Colin and Aakil got to work on constructing a twine ladder immediately. They wanted to work with the cave instead of building a post from scratch so they could move ahead to the next post this season. Before any of their men could get down into the space, Colin had to assess what was there. The pair of them had to be ready to give answers to questions no one wanted to ask.
Quietly, they crawled out of the tent and walked away from their sleeping crew. Neither of them dared to use a lantern to guide the way instead, relying on the moonlight to guide them there. Once they secured their make-shift ladder to a sturdy tree, they lit their lanterns and tossed the ladder into the opening.
Colin crouched down on his hands and knees, keeping one hand gripped on the twine as he crawled backward. Just before the opening, a creaking sound alerted him to take a firm two-handed grip just before the earth gave out beneath him.
His body was suddenly hanging, a large clump of dirt nailing him in the face. He held his breath and quickly closed the distance to the ground so he could wipe his face clean before breathing the soil into his sinuses and lungs.
Before he had recovered, Aakil landed at his side. “I wasn’t going to say it before, but maybe it’s time you passed on a few meals,” Aakil whispered.
A slight chuckle caught Colin off guard, sending him into the coughing fit he’d tried so hard to avoid. Once he recovered, he shot back, “It’s all muscle; you’re just jealous because you’re a runt.”
Aakil smirked and held up his light. Colin stood back for a moment, taking a moment to appreciate how Aakil could make Colin feel better with a well-placed joke even when they were in the direst of circumstances.
Colin looked around, knowing it was time to get to work. They needed to have a better understanding of what this place was, and what happened to its occupant. The more information they could arm themselves with, the more solid of a case they could build. “Do you think this was part of a house? Or an underground shelter?”
“I’m not sure.” Aakil once again studied the map on the wall.
Colin glanced back at the bookcase, which was not too different from what the State had used to house games and puzzles in the common rooms.
“Look.” Aakil tapped the wall. “This map, they put some kind of plastic on to preserve it. It’s almost like they knew it would be the last one they ever got.”
Colin’s heart sunk. Yeah, I know the feeling.
“It’s marked, see,” Aakil continued. “This here, this is where we’re at. And these other dots, they got coordinates written by them, and it has other survivors written at the top of the map. And this box on the desk, I’m pretty sure it’s an old radio. I bet whoever lived here left to find the others.”
Colin gulped hard. He hoped that somehow, those travelers had found their way. “Do you know where we are? I mean, where we are in relation to the dome?”
Aakil leaned in and held the light up closer. Before long, he slammed the light back on the desk.
“Whoa, careful,” Colin whispered. “Let’s not wake everyone.”
Aakil stepped away from him to the far side of the room, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We aren’t just on Earth, we’re in the same damn country as those sons of bitches that sent us here.”
It was bad. He didn’t understand the scope of what Aakil said, but he had stopped underestimating the lengths the State would go to when he realized they were on Earth.
How much worse can it really get?
“Okay. What does that mean?”
“We don’t have to cross the ocean to get to them. They’re just on the other side of the mountain.”
Colin’s head spun. Dizziness washed over his mind. He braced himself against the supporting wall and slid down to the floor. “We’ve been building straight toward them this entire time?”
“No.” Aakil slid down the opposing wall. “Thank God for that.”
“So, we aren’t headed straight for them?”
“No. They will still be pretty far away. We can cross the mountains and build a new community on just the other side, but the weather will be harsher there than what we experienced this last winter.”
Colin nodded. “Worse conditions means more people bitching.”
Aakil looked up with a vacant expression. “It also means a lot more people won’t make it through our first winter. We relied a lot on the spacecraft and our town hall to survive. If we pack up and leave now, we will get there with limited supplies, no crops, and no shelters other than the tents we’ve got.”
Colin cursed and jumped to his feet. He was overcome with a nervous energy and paced the space. “We’ve already been discredited with the community. No one will listen to us. Hardly anyone will come with us, making it even harder for us to survive.”
Aakil slowly rose to his feet and walked back to the map. “They might not listen to us, but they might listen to her.”
Colin clenched his fists at his sides, but it wasn’t enough. He kicked at the wall, causing a clump of dirt to fall in on them.
“Hey! You’re going to make the damn thing collapse in on us.”
He clenched his jaw. “Keep your voice down.”
“Why?” Aakil nearly shouted. “You don’t want our team to know we’re dead men walking? How are we going to spin this one, Colin? We can’t! We need to pack our shit and head back. Now. And you know what the first thing we’re going to do is? Wake Freya! It’s time. We’re out of options here.”
A weight pressed at Colin’s chest so great he could hardly draw another breath. He dropped to the floor. “I can’t wake her now.”
Aakil took a moment to collect himself before he sat beside Colin. “I know how you feel. You had this whole fairy-tale ending worked out in your head, but it’s just not going to be like that. It can’t be.”
Tears cascaded down his cheeks. “I just wanted to build a world she deserved. I thought I could do it. But I’ve messed everything up instead.”
Aakil jumped off the ground and started pacing again. Colin couldn’t speak; his mind couldn’t hardly comprehend her face when she told him what a mess he had made of everything. He shouldn’t have ever put her in hibernation. She would have handled everything better than he had. She would leave him the second she got out of that chamber, and he deserved nothing less.
<
br /> “I’m thinking,” Aakil remarked.
Colin looked up at him. “About what. You’re right. There’s nothing left to do but go home and wake her so she can dump me and come up with a plan.”
Aakil continued pacing. “There has to be something else. We just need to think.”
Defeat and exhaustion overtook him. He laid back and rested his head on the cold concrete floor, closing his eyes.
Aakil rummaged around with the contents of the table. “What we need to do is fix this old radio.”
Keeping his eyes closed, Colin rolled his head toward him. “Why? You think you can negotiate with the State?”
Aakil spun around with a near manic gleam in his eyes. “We need to find out if there are still survivors out there.”
Colin huffed. The concept was almost comical. “There won’t be. And even if there is, you’re not going to talk to them on that thing.”
“Colin, I really need you to pull yourself together here, mate.” He pointed back to the map again. “Okay, so I figure the place we landed is near, or used to be this city called Portland.”
“So?”
“It must have either been destroyed in the war, or the State thought really far ahead and cleared out the land so we would believe we arrived on untouched soil. According to the marking on the map, we’re about right here.”
As Aakil tapped the map, Colin pushed himself up on weak legs to get a better view. He cocked his head as Aakil’s finger slid further to the side and upward.
“We are a lot closer to that group up there than we are to the dome.” Colin suddenly gasped and smacked his hand over his forehead. “Even if they’re all dead, they might have left something behind. Like tools. Or we could work with the homestead they built instead of starting from scratch.”
“Exactly. Our odds of survival are better there—or at least, that’s how we’ll spin it to the Advisors—than anywhere else we could build alone. And look around; this place is still somewhat intact. This had to have been built before the war. So, if those people lived after the war, I bet there really is something left that we can use.”
A fire ignited in Colin’s chest. He still felt Freya would hate him, but he had to push his own personal feelings aside. He had a responsibility to their people—to keep them alive—despite how much the Advisors had pushed him out.
“So, we take everyone back, I wake Freya, she leaves me, then we tell the Advisors and they let all, say, 50 people who want to go with us, pack up and leave.”
Aakil spun around. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
Aakil’s head teetered back and forth. “I admire your integrity, but it might work out best for everyone if we soften the truth a little—especially to your lady-friend.”
Colin raised an eyebrow. “If you know a way to tell her we’re still on Earth that’s soft, I’d love to hear it.”
Aakil held his hands up in front of him. “Now, what if we tell our team we need them to build this post without us, but forget forging ahead? We’ve got something to deal with back home—”
“No. Sorry. We aren’t lying to our team. Besides. When they come down here to build, I bet they figure it out on their own.”
Aakil grimaced. “But if we went back alone, it would be easier to spin a tale for Freya.”
Colin crossed his arms. “This is about Freya now?”
“Just shut up and hear me out.” Aakil took a deep breath. “You go alone, and you wake Freya. You tell her all about how you saved her and took care of everything while she slept. Then, I’ll come back after with our crew. How about 2 days behind you, and I tell everyone of a discovery I just made? You think 2 days is enough for her to get her head on straight after sleeping? I think I could hold these men off for maybe a week, at best.”
Colin pursed his lips. “You want me to pretend I didn’t know? That everything is wonderful until you show up?”
Aakil nodded. “Yes. Then she can hate me instead of you.”
Colin laughed and bit his bottom lip. “You want to piss off our Queen before you’ve been introduced?”
Aakil shrugged. “Better me than you. Go. Have your moment. Be a hero. The reality is, if you didn’t push to build, we still wouldn’t know. You deserve a little respite before all hell breaks loose.”
“You would take the fall for me?”
“It’s not just you, mate. Our chances of survival are better with Freya on our side.”
Colin shook his head. “Thanks, but I don’t think she’ll buy it. She’s too smart and I’m not that good of a liar.”
Aakil reached out and placed his hand on Colin’s shoulder. “Mate, she will be too disoriented from sleeping. If she remembers getting shot, she might just be so shocked she’s alive she can’t get pissed at anything.
***
Colin’s hands were shaking, his pulse pounding in his throat, his vision blurred. This was it. There was no more room for hopes, dreams, denial. If Freya resented him, there was nothing he could do about it now. There was no perfect world to build for her, no success he could achieve to sway her, no well-crafted lies clever enough to get out of this mess.
Either she would forgive him, or she would resent him. Maybe she could understand his motivations, or perhaps she would see he had no better alternatives. It all came down to matters of the heart. Did she truly love him? Had she ever truly loved him? Or had her heart hardened toward him in the many years he’d slept?
“Well, this is a surprise. I thought you we’re going to wait another 6 years,” the technician said.
He plastered a fake grin on his face and hoped it was enough for her to get this done without any trouble. “Well. The Advisors said it’s my decision when she wakes up and I just can’t wait any longer.”
She fidgeted with a few controls in the chamber. “Are you excited?”
Despite his smile, he gulped back the acid threatening to come hurling out of him. “You have no idea.”
The technician beamed before her attention fully focused on the chamber as she worked through all the protocols. Colin reached out to help as she pulled back the heavy door, exposing Freya’s pale body before them.
“Does she look okay to you?” His eyes scanned up and down her body. “She’s so thin and pasty.”
The technician pushed in front of him. “So were you and everyone else when you woke up—and we all had more time in here than she did.”
“Freya?” he called out to her. “Can you hear me?”
“Don’t rush her.”
He pushed his hair back from his face. “I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
“Then let me do my job and stand back.”
She checked Freya’s vitals and tried to pry open her eyes. “Freya, can you hear me? Freya.”
“Freya,” Colin jumped in.
Her eyelids fluttered.
“See, she’s okay. Just give her another minute and I’ll assess her when she’s conscious.”
Colin pushed forward, placing a gentle hand on her cheek. “Freya.”
Finally, she opened her eyes.
“There you are.”
The technician pushed herself into Freya’s line of site. “Tell me your name.”
Freya looked at the woman then back at Colin and he could tell that this time, she saw him. He knew at that moment that she was all right, and she had, in fact, loved him.
“She’s fine.” He shoved the technician to the side. “We all were. Now back off and give us some privacy.”
Naturally, the technician huffed and shot daggers at Colin as she left. He didn’t care. Freya was awake, and she loved him. His fears were momentarily forgotten. A feeling of elation came over him. He still had a chance to hold on to the women he loved. They might make it through this after all.
He took a deep breath and did his best impression of the boy he once was, the one she originally resented but then fell in love with. The years of hardship and loss had nearly destroyed that jovial, light-hearted goofball inside
of him. It was rare he gave anyone any cheek, Aakil being the one exception. He had been shaped into something new, just as she had in his absence. If their love was strong enough, they would navigate together through both their changes.
“Colin, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, you know, just thought I’d pop by. I had something to tell you.”
She looked at him, even more confused than when she first awoke. “What?”
“That you were wrong.” He caressed her face, feeling every word and sentiment from the depth of his being. “I still love you.”
Conspired: A Young Adult Dystopian Romance (The State Series Book 6) Page 25
