Reckoning in an Undead Age

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Reckoning in an Undead Age Page 24

by A. M. Geever


  “Am I what?”

  “His girl.”

  For a moment, she had no idea what he was talking about. Then she laughed, so abruptly it sounded like a bark.

  “Phineas? God, no. He’s just a good friend. The teasing and flirting are…just our thing.”

  Kendall nodded.

  “The day Phineas and I are an item is the day we really have problems.”

  “Okay.” Kendall seemed to digest this information, then said, “What happened to your boyfriend?”

  For a split second, she thought he was talking about Mario. A cold stab of pain pierced her chest, taking her by surprise, before she realized she’d mentioned being in her dorm at the beginning. He meant Sam.

  “He was killed, about six months into it.” She took a deep breath, the stab of loss replaced by a familiar sorrow that had been softened by time. “It was my fault. I tried to hold a line when I should have run. He came back for me when he should have kept going.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. It was a long time ago, and there was nothing to be done about it, except keep living. It was what Sam had wanted for her.

  “What about you? Was there anyone special?” Kendall shifted, looking more uncomfortable than he usually did, and she added, “You don’t have to answer. It’s none of my business. I don’t usually talk about before much.”

  Kendall smiled nervously, the owl blink returning. “I had girlfriends in college and grad school, but after that I worked all the time, getting the company off the ground.” He stopped, his face crinkling like he had tasted something bitter. “After the company started doing well, people always wanted things from me. It was hard to tell if it was me, or what they wanted from me, that interested them most.”

  Her stomach hollowed out as she realized she’d fucked this up. Kendall already suspected they wanted something from him. Because of her slip before about the food, he seemed to have pulled together a hypothesis about their motives. His comment felt like a shot across the bow.

  Then he said, “But maybe things are different now.”

  They wanted something from Kendall. The conundrum of his old life hadn’t fallen away, as he wished—as most everything else had. Miranda told herself they would befriend Kendall even if he had nothing, and that was true. She’d decided to befriend him after the night she’d stopped him singing, for reasons that had nothing to do with the things that LO needed. But after going back to LO to dissect and discuss what their discovery might mean, would they have made the effort to come back out here again so soon if all he had was dried squirrel, and odds and ends he’d scavenged? She knew the answer, even if she tried to tell herself otherwise.

  But they offered Kendall something, too. They offered connection—community. They had the ability to give him the sense of belonging that every human being hungers for. And as much as she hated it, they had her, or rather, Kendall’s interest in her. She’d resisted the idea, brushed off the teasing from Alec and the others as fanciful nonsense, but she could see it in Kendall’s eyes, in the nervous flutter of his lips when he smiled. She’d seen it in the relief on his face when she’d grinned at him through the windows in the airlock door. She couldn’t predict if it would wax or wane, but right now, Kendall wanted her.

  The idea of stringing him along rubbed every molecule in her body the wrong way. It made her psyche shoot sparks the way static electricity crackles inside a tangled blanket. But there were five hundred odd people at LO who needed to eat, and more were arriving every week. There was a vaccine they needed to get out into the world, but the urgency of the food shortage had pushed it aside when it should be their number one priority. Kendall, and what he had, might be the difference between usurping the San Jose vaccine in six months or in a year. Or—she realized with a start, with a cold unease that trickled down her spine—at all. The Council had already attacked them once. If they found out their raid had failed, they would try again. Given a second chance, they might even succeed.

  The wave of nausea rising in her throat made her feel a little dizzy, thinking about what that would mean. Nothing would change. Everything that had happened—coming here, losing Tadpole, killing Jeremiah, her estrangement from Doug, even how things had imploded with Mario—all of it would be for nothing.

  She forced a smile and gave Kendall’s knee a squeeze. His eyes widened in surprise, and a blush began to flush his face.

  “I think that’s the only thing I like about the way the world is now,” she said, giving the self-loathing rising in her chest a hard shove to send it back where it came from. “Who you were and what you had before isn’t important. It’s who you are, what you do now, that matters.”

  Three days later, she was fired. She’d just finished her breakfast when Alec entered the main dome. He sauntered over to where she sat at the end of one of the long, curved dining tables.

  “Good morning,” he said, plopping into the chair to her left, around the table’s corner.

  She rushed the last gulp of her drink, then said, “Good morning, yourself.”

  Alec looked down at her plate. “You’ve got a healthy appetite.”

  She considered her place setting. Faint orange streaks from the powdered eggs with cheese and tomato were sprinkled with crumbs from her toast. Toast that had been buttered, which set her mouth watering even though she wasn’t hungry anymore. An empty bowl with the filmy residue from oatmeal with raisins held the browning cores of two apples. Next to it was an empty glass ringed at the bottom with a few drops of milk.

  “When in Rome.”

  Alec said, “Things have been going well with Kendall the last few days.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Better than I expected. We’re going to hang out in the airlock today.”

  His lips pursed to the side. An apology filled his eyes. “No, you’re not.”

  “What are you talking about? That’s the plan we made yesterday.”

  “Kendall’s still going into the airlock today, but you’re not. He asked me to do it.”

  “He did?” she said. “Why would he do that?”

  Alec cast a quick glance around the dome, then said, “He didn’t come out and say it, but I think he doesn’t want to look bad in front of you.”

  “But he’s doing gr—” She stopped abruptly, then sighed. “Is this the feeling like a coward thing? I told him that’s not true.”

  Alec’s half smile was sympathetic. “He fancies you, Miranda. I know that makes you uncomfortable, but he does. There’s not a man on earth who wants to seem weak in front of the woman he fancies. Even me, and I’m fantastic.”

  She snorted, then sat back in her chair.

  “You need to make yourself scarce, lassie. We’re starting soon.”

  “Men really are stupid,” she muttered, collecting her dishes and taking them to the sink. She wasn’t sure why she was so miffed. What did she care if Kendall didn’t want her around? If she was getting in the way of his progress, then she was the wrong person to do it.

  “Do I have time to do these dishes?” she asked.

  Alec had followed her as far as the counter that separated the main dome from the kitchen area. “I’ll get them,” he said.

  “Guess I’ll beat it.”

  As she walked past him, Alec reached for her arm. “Don’t get your nose out of joint, Miranda.”

  She stopped. “It’s not.” Alec raised his eyebrow at her. “He could have told me, is all.”

  Alec gave her arm a squeeze before letting go. That smile of his, sly and roguish, lit up his face and arced to his eyes. Since their nightcap at the liquor store, she enjoyed it more than she was completely comfortable with. She wasn’t sure she was ready for anything like whatever this was. But she wasn’t sure she wasn’t, either.

  “Don’t you worry after that,” he said. “I have a feeling you don’t lack for company when you want it.”

  The butterflies filled her stomach again. “Good luck,” she said, sounding cooler than she felt.
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  She walked across the dome, past the dining tables, and through the lounge opposite the kitchen, feeling Alec’s eyes on her until she turned into the corridor.

  A few nights later, she went to the garden. She knew Kendall was inside—she could hear him singing.

  She padded into the garden dome in bare feet, the moisture in the air caressing her nasal passages. She wasn’t familiar with the music—classical, with Latin lyrics. Kendall seemed to like singing in Latin.

  It took a few moments to find him, since he wasn’t at the potting table, but watering plants.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Kendall stood at the far end of a row of bush beans. He looked up, then smiled. His smile was and wasn’t the same as when they’d arrived. It still had the slightly apologetic edge, but there was also more confidence since he’d ventured outside the airlock and into the corridor leading to the surface. Everything about him had more confidence. He walked with purpose. His posture had straightened. The way he participated in conversation over their meals had improved. Miranda wouldn’t exactly call him talkative, but his voice had lost that edge of learned helplessness that had trapped more than his body. He still hadn’t made it outside, but he was no longer trapped in the same mental prison as when they first met him.

  She smiled in return, then fingered the leaves of one of the bean plants. The blossoms had withered, and tiny bean pods were forming within them.

  “They look good,” she said. Kendall nodded. Without looking at him, she said, “I heard you might open the blast door soon.” When Kendall didn’t respond, she looked at him. “Unless Alec and Rich are pulling my leg.”

  “They’re not,” he said, and the owl blink started, along with shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  “I’m really proud of you, Kendall, if you don’t mind me saying that.” When he didn’t say anything, she glanced over. He stared at her, his face filled with astonishment. “Don’t look so surprised. It’d be easier to stay here, keep doing what you’re doing. It takes guts to do something different, especially when it can be dangerous.”

  A blush crept up his neck. Eventually, he said, “I’m tired of being inside.”

  “I honestly don’t know how you’ve done it.”

  Kendall shrugged. “I decided my apartment, this place, was all I needed, so long as I was alive. But I want more now.”

  “You know what?” she said, seeing an opportunity. “I’ve never seen your apartment.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  She hadn’t expected him to ask her that. Kendall was so reserved, so guarded… She’d expected it to take weeks to get to this point. He did the owl blink a few times, his brown eyes seeming to grow wider with every flutter of his eyelids. He set down the watering wand.

  “Come on.”

  She followed him out to the main corridor. They walked in silence, chlorine scenting the air outside the dome that contained the swimming pool. When they reached the door to the short hallway to his apartment, Kendall glanced at her uncomfortably, his hand hovering over the keypad. She averted her gaze, counted eight beeps, then followed him through the door.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, because it looked very much like the other residence domes, except it was oblong like the garden dome. Along its length a wall had been built, creating a space to hang paintings. Miranda walked over to them, admiring the range from modern to classical.

  “I like this,” she said, stopping in front of a portrait of a young girl whose shoulders were lost in the shawl wrapped around them. She looked over her shoulder, wide eyes, her pale, heart-shaped face seeming almost disembodied against the dark background. The painting was old, and the girl had the kind of face that could blossom into great beauty, or fade to plainness. “It reminds me of that one with the earring… Where her head is wrapped in a scarf,” Miranda said, gesturing at her head while her mind’s eye conjured the painting from an Art History class she had taken.

  Kendall nodded. “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” he said. “This is by the same artist.”

  Miranda looked at Kendall, then said slowly, “But wasn’t that by one of the Dutch Masters?”

  “Vermeer,” Kendall said, nodding.

  She saw a flash of pride on his face that almost bordered on smug. Kendall had been a billionaire several times over, certainly rich enough to buy a painting by a Dutch Master, or any other kind. The expression on his face—proud and possessive—reminded her of the things she disliked about him. Or maybe he was proud to have preserved a painting of such significance. She looked at the rest. A few she knew, more she didn’t. She felt awed by the collection, looking at painting after painting after painting. Even though money was irrelevant now, this wall had hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of art hanging on it. Just hanging here, underground, outside of Portland. It struck her as a little absurd.

  “Do you want something to drink?” Kendall asked.

  “Sure,” she said. “Thanks.”

  She turned away from the art collection to look at the rest of his apartment. She’d expected different furnishings, a higher level of restrained opulence, but that wasn’t the case. There was a nook with several electric guitars and an amp, and a bunch of brown cardboard boxes. Couches and chairs, bookshelves, and a dining area with a crystal chandelier. The kitchen was in the center of the room, small and cramped, like it had been an afterthought. The kitchen in the dome she and her friends were in was much nicer.

  She heard a hollow pop—he was opening a bottle of wine. She kept strolling, pausing to read the spines of books, trailing her hand alongside tables as she wandered through the expansive apartment. She stopped at the dining table, counting fourteen chairs. Almost the entire table was covered by picnic tablecloths, the waterproof kind with a felted back. Dozens of tiny bowls were at one end, all with an inch of water at the bottom. Labels were on the side, all with small block lettering. Miranda looked closer and realized there were seeds in the water. She knew what Kendall was doing; he was harvesting the seeds.

  Most, if not all, seeds from fruits and vegetable had a slimy, outer coating. If left on the seed it hardened, protecting it over the winter when it fell to the ground or was pooped out by an animal. When seeds were stored to be cultivated, it was best to remove that slime before it hardened. Cultivated seeds didn’t need protection from the elements that broke down that outer coating in time for the growing season, but sitting in water for several days achieved the same thing. The seeds would still germinate despite the hardened outer coating, but it took longer, sometimes so much that you missed the best growing window. Late harvests often meant failed harvests when the weather turned. When you depended on subsistence farming for your survival, you had to maximize your chances of success.

  Farther down the table was a large piece of cloth over the tablecloth—a bedsheet, she realized. Seeds were spread on it in small groups, with little pieces of masking tape next to them. She knew what this was, too. These were the seeds set out to dry. Once they dried, they could be scraped off the cloth and stored. She looked at the labels: Tomato—Hawaiian Pineapple; Bean—Rattlesnake Snap; Tomato—Black Krim; Tomato—Brandywine; Pepper—Anaheim Mild; Carrot—Dragon; Garlic—German Extra Hardy, and so on. There were seeds from pumpkins, zucchini, corn, broccoli, radishes, cabbage, and more. A stack of envelopes and a few pencils were scattered just beyond the sheet in front of a chair not fully pushed into place. That must be where Kendall sat while he put the seeds into envelopes. The few sealed envelopes on the table were dated by year. Beside the chair were two cardboard book boxes, like she’d bought from a moving company when she first left home for college. She peeked inside one and saw that it was crammed full of small envelopes of seeds.

  Kendall rejoined her and gave her a glass. She sniffed the light-gold liquid, the scent of oak and citrus filling her nose. The crisp coolness of the wine lit up her taste buds.

  “This wine is lovely,” she said. Kendall
nodded, looking pleased. She motioned to the table. “Saving seeds, I see.”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding. “They’re heirlooms, of course, so the seeds can be grown the next year. Hybrids don’t work well for that. And heirlooms grow true to type.”

  “I know. I’ve done a fair bit of gardening,” she said. She took a closer look at the book box full of seeds by the table, then looked back to the boxes by the guitars. They were also book boxes. “Are those boxes of seeds, too, by the guitars?”

  Kendall nodded. Miranda blinked, surprised. She counted; there were fifteen boxes over there. Book boxes were about twelve inches on all sides, a little bigger, actually. She knew he’d been here ten years, but still… Kendall had enough seeds to supply fifteen farms. Not just dinky farms, either, but farms with some serious acreage.

  Without thinking, she said, “Can I have some? You must have seeds for varietals I’ve never even heard of.”

  Kendall just looked at her for a moment, then the owl blink started up. “I, uh— They’re my seeds.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said, beginning to grin. “You’ve got more than you can ever use.”

  Kendall just stared at her, the owl blink getting worse by the second. He opened and closed his mouth, Adam’s apple bobbing, then said, “No. I’d rather not. I might…need them myself.”

  Woah, she thought, so shocked she had no idea how to respond. He was right, of course; they were his seeds. The fact that he wouldn’t give her any practically had her jaw on the floor. There was no way he’d ever use them all, or even half, not if he lived to be ninety.

  Recovering herself, she tipped her head to the end of the apartment beyond the kitchen. “Bedroom’s that way?” When Kendall looked at her blankly, she added wryly, “I’m not suggesting we go there.”

  “No, I— Of course not,” he stumbled, blushing furiously. Then he muttered, “Bathroom is there, too.”

  She took another sip of wine as she made a slow three-hundred-sixty-degree turn. She didn’t want to add to his embarrassment by watching him blush, and she wasn’t entirely sure she was covering her shock at his refusal of the seeds. She examined the walls and floor, looking for somewhere a door might be hidden by furnishing or plants. As her eyes skated along the art collection, she looked more closely at the wall, wondering about the space behind it, where the dome sloped up from the floor. It would be easy to hide a door behind that. Or it might be a closet, she thought, not wanting to get ahead of herself.

 

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