The Bedrock

by Shelbi Wescott

  Thea hated to admit that the matching was a successful social experiment. She’d had a few friends give into the Wealth and Health doctrine early and it surprised her to find people welcomed the partnering and pampering. It drew fewer complaints than the Island nutrition mandates which sent some people hoarding sweets in their apartments and organizing secret baking parties.

  “I can’t force you to go,” Blair sighed and she walked to the foot of the bed and smiled wryly. “No more than I can make you sign up to court.”

  She frowned. Right. She could choose to stay single, like her mother, but she’d spent her entire life hearing Blair plan her future, and it always involved courtship and grandchildren. There was no appeal in the testing process and Thea wasn’t interested in a scientific match, someone who could never be her true counterpart, not as long as she was intent on reaching the top.

  Her cousin Almira, however, three death certificates away from leadership, was going to gamble on finding a partner who understood her inevitable role running the Islands. There was no way her grandfather and uncle would trust the algorithm, but just who had control was always dicey; Thea thought it was common knowledge that Almira’s scientific match was always going to be the most politically advantageous one.

  “Does Almira know it’s rigged?” Thea asked, needling again. She wondered if the burn was making her more intent on causing discomfort to others, too. She watched her mom’s face for agreement or disdain.

  “It’s not rigged, Thea,” she replied. Disdain. “If you won’t go to the ceremony, then I demand you spend time with your grandfather…”

  Thea made an involuntary groan and threw her blanket up over her head in protest. Blair marched right on over and pulled the blanket down, she leaned down and flicked at the bandage once and then twice, and a thick burning sensation erupted from Thea’s chest. She bit back on a wail and wiggled away from a third flick.

  “I’m injured!”

  “It’s non-negotiable. Courting ceremony or your grandfather. Take a pick.”

  “Fine,” Thea accepted. “But only because he’s gonna be dead soon.”

  Blair slapped her daughter’s arm with a flimsy palm, but not hard enough to hurt only hard enough to imply she disagreed, and she retreated back to the center of the room, grabbing her small tablet along the way. She opened up the screen and scanned through some messages, mumbling while Thea made a mental note: The Bermuda Project wasn’t allowed a mention but it was okay to disparage her grandfather, the King? Noted. Her mother had a secret container filled with the next batch of drones, but Gordy and Huck didn’t know about those either.

  As Blair scrolled, a call came through the room. She answered it.

  Up from the screen popped a hologram image of her uncle Gordy. Blair swiped away his image but kept the voice activation on.

  “I’m on my way to the main tower banquet hall,” Blair announced before he could say anything else. “Give me five minutes. Thea will take that time to sit with Dad. Do you want him to watch a feed?” she asked.

  “No, it’s fine,” Gordy dismissed. “You want me to send an escort to the room?”

  “Not necessary. She’ll go,” Blair said and craned her neck to make eye-contact, raising her eyebrows as if to say: now you better deliver, I’ve promised. “I saw the press release come through the message system. Brilliant, by the way. Deny them any satisfaction. And the video was a delightful addition…who did that?”

  “Almira,” Gordy answered with pride. There was a pause. “Hey, I realized after I left seeing Thea today that we were distracted and I never told her details about the attacker. She said she wanted to know.”

  “Oh, did she now?” Blair responded. She moved closer to Thea’s bed, holding the tablet open. “She can hear you, so go ahead.”

  “Diana Ferguson. Born on Kymberlin. Her grievance against you was simple, actually, not familial which makes it easier…” Thea looked up and saw her mom stifle a smile. Gordy continued, “…do you remember her?” She appeared to wait for Thea’s response, but she sat unmoved.

  Blair answered for her. “No, she doesn’t know the girl.”

  “Same age. Diana. Grew up with you on Kymberlin?”

  “She doesn’t remember, Gordy.”

  Her uncle sighed. “Seems like you were rivals a bit in primary school. You shared a crush…and she developed some jealousy then, often complaining to her mom. But the anger really solidified when you stole her dog.”

  At that announcement, Thea laughed.

  She couldn’t help it.

  “I’ve never stolen anyone’s dog!” she yelled, still laughing, spinning her legs out of the bed to toddle forward and defend her name from bad memories. “That’s ridiculous and you know it.”

  She tied her robe tighter around her waist and stalked to the tablet holding Gordy’s voice as if it were Gordy himself. While her mom’s eyes agreed that the stolen dog was bullshit, and her subtle smile said she was on Thea’s side, Thea understood she was being asked to relinquish the truth.

  “A little puppy named Monkey…”

  “Grandpa Huck bred that puppy for me.”

  “Actually,” Gordy interrupted, “Monkey was born into the Aeacus breeding compound and was initially claimed by a family also on Kymberlin…”

  “Come on,” Thea replied. She snapped her gaze up at her mom. “Was this the best feud you could create? Wouldn’t it play better to the masses if she stole my dog? Why am I an asshole in this?”

  “Then what’s the motivation for the encounter, Thea?” Gordy interjected swiftly.

  “I don’t know! Maybe she’s just ill and angry! Maybe she tripped why didn’t you say she tripped?”

  “I don’t have time to explain this to your daughter, Blair. If you do it without needing to offer information above her clearance, thank you, also. Just please end this mess and meet me in the banquet hall. Thea, you hear me? You’ve got thirty minutes before I’m sending guards to make sure you find your way to Huck. Were you the reading cancellation? Everyone does their time, Thea. Everyone.”

  “I don’t need escorts,” Thea offered through clenched teeth, but it was futile. He’d already hung up. She dug her fingernails into the palms of her balled-up fists and watched as her mother closed the tablet and walked over to the room’s communication console. Blair flipped on the Inter-Island news channel and a message popped into her room and scrolled through. The communication bots read the press release while Thea watched the corresponding video with increased agitation.

  Stole her dog. Ridiculous.

  “I’ll call for the doctor again,” Blair said and walked off to let the entirety of the situation sink in.

  In a grainy video of the spa, she watched the encounter play out over and over in repeat. Diana stood up and walked over to Thea and began to yell. Thea, in the video, still holding her teacup, reacted to the ensuing argument by pouring the hot tea on herself. A re-envisioning of the incident told from the perspective of a family desperate to hide and cover any appearances of disagreement.

  Any mention of the truth wiped and covered; Diana was no doubt dead—her family next—in addition to all the people gleaned to be dissidents during interrogation.

  Monkey, however, unwittingly brought into the story, turned thirteen and still enjoyed his daily walks up the tower platforms and back to her suite. As she watched him deteriorate, she wasn’t filled with worry about his loss: Monkey himself was a clone. She’d get her little puppy back in an endless cycle of Monkeys.

  It was embarrassing to watch the edited footage which assumed Thea was so scared of the woman yelling about a dog that she jumped three feet into the air and aggressively spilled boiling hot water on her chest. In the official history of her life, she realized with growing dismay, she’d have no control of how they painted her—

  which was often as a buffoon to Amira’s intelligence, grace, and poise.

  And that wasn’t her at all.

  They made her pain petty because no o
ne on those Islands was ready to view Thea as a victim of anything, let alone a bullish insurgent. The hot tea, she realized then, was far more calculated than she’d given it credit for. No one could know an anti-Huck wave was gaining enthusiasm among the outer Islands—the children didn’t like the promises their parents made once upon a time.

  If the Trumans didn’t have everyone’s vote of confidence, and the splintering was only starting, Thea knew her mother’s plan might be accelerated instead of shelved.

  She put a hand over her chest, where the bandages covered her burns and felt the warmth ooze out of them. War scars, she thought, to a battle only a few people know about.

  Soon, that would all change.

  Chapter Seven

  The Colony,

  formerly Jackson Lake, Wyoming

  The Grand Tetons

  LARKSPUR

  The Community Dinner was busy and lively as always as the Colony shared a dish with the group and divided into their respective subsections and families and cliques: the parents and their kids, factions within and without, all united under the treescape canopies and candlelit halls. The parents sat around and discussed ancient opinions as if the errors of the Old World still needed their judgment, and the kids joked and played and laughed.

  There was no sign of the earlier discord in the dining hall: all the broken glass was cleared away and the cheeses buried back in the snow.

  Elijah and his existence didn’t matter—only the Colony and their community mattered. At least that was the intended vibe, and Lark wondered what her parents would do if she tapped her glass and made an announcement: “I have some questions…”

  Harper and Lark took their plates, personalized and washed by hand after every meal, and grabbed some of the food offerings—vegetables and flatbreads cooked over open fire with fish bred in their own lake. They sat close to the exit, far from where Lark hid earlier and scooted their chairs together to eat undisturbed.

  “Oh, here she comes, here she comes,” Harper said and turned her face to her niece in faux-surprise.

  Lark saw the plump figure of Inez Garcia walking toward them both, her face warm and welcoming but also gearing up to lay some unwanted advice on them both.

  “Harper, Harper,” Inez said and grabbed the near-thirty-year-old woman by the cheeks and patted her with motherly affection, leaning down for an unwanted hug. “You should eat. And while you eat, let me tell you how excited I am to see you. Have you rejoined the Colony?”

  “No,” Harper said with a sly smile. “I haven’t.” She cut a look to Lark, shoulders up.

  Inez’s own grin dropped and she stared at the duo with a furrowed brow. “Your mother—” she started in with pure disapproval.

  “My mother,” Harper interrupted with bright eyes, wide, brows raised, “was a saint. And at the end of it all,” she paused with gravity, “she confessed her mistakes. Including, but not limited to, this place.” She swung her hand around the festive gathering and watched as Inez’s stare grew stony. “If you don’t remember…her complete change of heart had a lot to do with why I left…”

  “Oh well,” Inez replied, hand on her heart. “I didn’t…I shouldn’t…well, how about—Lark? You doing well? Good. Good. Well, I’ll leave you two to eat.” The intruder slinked back to her own table, her head low and posture slanted to hide her face. The people in her area all turned to glance at Harper, and Harper merely waved and smiled, her mouth full of bread.

  “Gossipy old women is such a tired cliché and yet, here we are.” Harper cleared her throat and turned back to Lark. She sighed, “That’s fine. They don’t like I left this place, but I don’t need to hear about it when I’m here. Which I am. So.”

  “Why are you here?” Lark asked. A visit without a cause seemed unlikely, and the timing seemed ominous. But Lark wasn’t in the mood to try guessing, and it was easy to see her aunt was a bit on edge.

  It wasn’t a coincidence that Harper and the man Elijah visited the same day. It wasn’t a coincidence that she led the two of them to sit by the door or that when the Fathers, all twelve of them, and Elijah from earlier that afternoon stormed into community dinner, Harper jumped up to make herself seen immediately, motioning that she was there—it was okay.

  But it clearly wasn’t okay.

  The commotion happened so fast Lark was initially stunned.

  The doors of the dining hall swung inward and the Twelve Fathers, the leaders of the Children of the Lake and self-proclaimed modern-day prophets, flooded into their sacred ground without warning.

  No gong or knock, or no second to prepare. And if the Fathers were all in the dining hall then who was watching the lands and the hills? Who was protecting them?

  Lark stood up, she didn’t know why. Her instinct told her to rush to her parents, but before she could make a move, Harper wrapped her arm around Lark’s shoulder and pushed her back into the chair.

  The Fathers were always heavily armed.

  They wore long black robes in homage to something ancient and forgotten by everyone except for them, and underneath those robes, weapons of all sorts. The enigmatic figures didn’t wear their weapons to wield control, but rather as a reminder of the exchange the Colony made.

  The Father closest to Lark’s table was monstrous, a giant towering over the room, and he continued to stare at her as the room halted and hushed. Unblinking, watching, she locked her jaw into a frown.

  Everyone at the community dinner had the same thought as Lark: If the Fathers were in the dining hall then the Colony was left unprotected. Their arrival signaled a deep unease that started with the parents but spread to the children, and soon everyone stared and waited for an explanation.

  The Fathers held power and wisdom, they stood tall and followed a strict code of conduct set for them at the very beginning of their sect; the first tenet: to protect the weak. And the Colony and its people were weak. For fifteen years they stood watch: as long as Lark could remember. And now they stood and stared, hands at their waist, ready and willing to end any disagreement with violence.

  There were twelve Fathers, all genderless and ageless, each of them tall, dark, beautiful, and focused in their pursuits. Where they came from before the end of the world, and who they answered to, was part of Colony lore, but their city and their mission kept growing.

  The Colony within the Children of the Lake’s commune was a veritable needle in a haystack, although Lark had never seen a haystack nor learned to use a needle. And the Fathers, she supposed keeping the analogy going, were like a farmer with fire ready on standby to burn the whole thing down. But the great powers of their land rarely paid a visit to the old hotel and its Colony members unless something was wrong.

  Lark understood, for the third time that day: something was wrong.

  “That’s Father Joshua,” Harper whispered and nodded to one of the Fathers making their way to the front of the hall, Elijah leading the charge. “My friend and mentor. I’m sorry, sweetheart,” her aunt said, apropos of nothing, and Lark’s dread increased.

  Lark looked over. Father Joshua was broad-shouldered but lean, with long dark hair knotted to a bun on their crown, and their angled face and brown eyes, the cleft of their chin, all arranged with perfect stoicism. She wondered what friend and mentor meant, and if that meant Harper’s community dinner appearance was a show.

  “Why are they here?” Lark whispered. Harper shook her head once: No. And Lark was too afraid to push further. She watched as one of the Fathers approached her father with Elijah and began to discuss the invasion of privacy in earnest. Every spying bone in Lark’s body wanted to find a way to saunter over to the table and wrap herself in every word. But her aunt put a heavy hand on her shoulder and pinned her into the chair with force.

  “Will someone explain the intrusion?” someone called to the quarreling leaders.

  After the first call, Inez rose up too and pounded a fist. “We have rules! You must be invited!” She glared at Harper for good measure and Harper res
isted the urge to raise a finger or her voice in return. No, her aunt chuckled and shook her head—she couldn’t be bothered with Colony opinions anymore.

  “Why are you here then?” Lark asked in a non-whisper.

  Harper dug her fingers into Lark’s shoulder once and then twice, not enough to hurt just enough for Lark to realize maybe she should stop asking questions.

  “I will speak for the Fathers,” Grant said and he addressed the congregation of Colony members. “It has come to our attention that some people believe our location has been compromised.”

  Darla stood and Harper inhaled sharply. Her wife Jenna followed Darla to her feet. Compromised.

  Her godmother waved her hand to quiet the growing whispers. “Do not believe this rumor!” she shouted, her family at her side. “It is baseless and from conjecture. They believe someone may have already infiltrated…” Darla stopped. “They believe we’d hide someone here…someone unsafe.” She glanced at the Fathers around the room and held her hands out. “We are standing here before everyone we love…people we would never hurt….to tell you that we wouldn’t endanger the Colony—”

  Elijah spun to the dinner group.

  “But the Colony is in danger!” he protested.

  He was a full outsider—not a Father, not a guest—just an intrusion, and it was clear the Colony did not want to trust the stranger as much as they were quiet and listened to him out of respect. They’d nod, but they wouldn’t believe.