by Seven Steps
“Last one on the list,” Nadira whispered. “Comm Empress Isla, Habitat Alpha Residential.”
The word COMM blinked. Then, a face appeared on the screen.
“Empress Isla, please don’t hang up,” Nadira cried.
“Who is this?” The woman asked.
“My name is Empress Nadira. I just want to ask a few questions about the vandalism to your home.”
“You tell that sinister Arees that she’s gotten what she wants. I said I’d vote for her. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
Nadira’s eyes opened wide.
Arees has gotten what she wants? She gasped. Arees must have blackmailed her! How many women has she done this to?
Nadira chose her next words carefully. “Empress Isla, I am not comming on Arees’ behalf.”
Confusion clouded Isla’s aged blue eyes. “You’re not?”
“No. I’m comming to stop her. Whatever she’s doing, we can’t let her get away with it.”
“She’s already gotten away with it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know if I should be telling you this. If it gets back to Arees-”
“Please, Isla. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.” She took a deep breath. “Arees has taken someone very close to me. I’m trying to get them back. Please help me.”
“Just do what she says,” Isla said. “Give her your vote. She won’t stop until she has the vote.”
“And then what? If she knows that she can use us, break us, she’ll continue to do it again and again, poking and prodding where we are weak until we’re nothing more than her puppets. I won’t let that happen. I won’t be anyone’s puppet.”
Isla didn’t seem convinced.
“Please Isla. I promise that no harm will come to you. But please, I need your help. Tell me why Arees had your home vandalized. What does she want? Why is she doing this?”
Isla sighed. “Those savages broke into my home, tied me to a chair and went through my things. Not an hour later, Empress Chee, contacted me. She threatened to report some... business dealings that I’ve been involved in to High Council if I didn’t give Arees my vote. I tried to hold out, tried to do what was right. But I can’t go down now, not when I’ve got so much left to do. Whatever Arees wants, give it to her. Nothing is worth losing your life’s work over.”
“Isla-”
“That’s all I have to say. Please, don’t comm me again.”
The screen went blank.
“She’s gotten to them,” Nadira said. “She’s got to all of them.”
“We have to go to the High Council with this information,” Eva said. “We have to tell them what Arees has been doing.”
“It’s not enough,” Nadira said. “All we have is a feed of Enforcers wiping slaves and hearsay.”
“It’s not hearsay,” Eva said. “We have Isla.”
“Isla won’t testify against Arees for us. She’ll deny everything. We need actual evidence, hard indisputable evidence to link Arees to the riots, the murders...” Nadira’s voice trailed off. “The murders.”
She picked up her touch screen. Flipped through it. Dropped it, backed away as if it were about to come alive in her hands.
“Nadira, what is it?”
“The murders, the vote. The women on that list were all on the ballot for primary elections tomorrow. She’s killing off her rivals. She’s going to steal the election.”
Eva ran, picked up the touch screen.
“It can’t be. There has to be some other explanation.”
“There is no other explanation. Arees is murdering anyone who opposes her.”
“Wait, there’s one left,” Eva said. “Empress Baleen of Beta.”
“Baleen?”
Nadira ran, grabbed the touch screen from Eva, let out a breath.
“She’s not on the list of casualties. That means alive,” she said.
“Yes, but for how long?” Eva asked.
“I don’t know,” Nadira said. “She commutes from Habitat Beta. We have to find her. We have to warn her. She could be in danger.”
Nadira turned to the wall comm. “Comm Empress Baleen Osirus, Habitat Beta.”
The comm blinked, but went unanswered.
“Oh no,” Nadira gasped. “What if she’s already dead?”
“We don’t know that.”
“We have to go to Habitat Beta right now and look for her. We have to warn her.”
“Nadira, it’s late, and Habitat Beta is far away. We need rest. We can look for her first thing in the morning.”
“We can’t wait that long. Empress Drell’s memorial is tomorrow morning, then it’s the primary vote. There are only two names on the list. We have to get to her tonight, or else she won’t make it to the primaries.”
“Nadira-”
“Eva, we have to do this. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Nadira, this is getting dangerous. We have to think about ourselves. Go home and get some rest. We’ll leave early tomorrow before the funeral and make sure that Baleen is okay. There is nothing more that we can do tonight.”
“But-”
“Go get some rest, Nadira,” Eva said.
Nadira nodded. Her mouth was set in a tight line.
“Alright. I’ll comm you first thing tomorrow.”
“I’ll be ready.”
Nadira hugged her friend, “Thank you for doing this with me.”
“You’re welcome. And don’t forget. First thing.”
Nadira smiled. “First thing.”
Nadira walked out to the door, and climbed into her hovercraft. She rose up in the air and headed straight for Habitat Beta.
Chapter 22
Lex’s expert hands moved with quickness as he put Eva’s hair into two braids for what remained of the night. She watched him work in her dressing mirror. The day had been long and eventful, and sleep called to her now, the drowsiness playing with her inhibitions. The familiar warmth she felt when he was close was heavy upon her.
What is this feeling? She wondered. It’s addictive, strange.
She bit her lip, and watched him apply cream to the ends of her hair.
“Thank you, Lex. For everything you’ve done for Nadira.”
“You’re welcome, Empress.”
“I know she appreciates it. I do too.”
“I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“Why?” she asked. “You barely know her.”
“Any woman who risks her life to help a man is a friend to me.”
“You must’ve had many friends when you lived with Drell.”
“Not many. Some.”
“Tell me about them.”
“Are you sure? There’s only five hours left until you have to be at Drell’s funeral, not to mention the promise you made to Nadira to go to Beta sector. Are you certain that you wouldn’t rather sleep?”
“How about I lay down, and you tell me about your friends until I fall asleep?”
She threw a smiled over her shoulder, walked to the bed, and climbed in.
Lex remained standing awkwardly by the dressing table, his eyes glued to her.
“Aren’t you going to join me?”
“I, uh, I’m not allowed, Empress.”
“Who doesn’t allow you?”
“The rules are clear. I am not allowed in your bed.”
She pouted. “Well, what if we just bend the rules a little? You sit on the edge of the bed, and I’ll listen to you from over here.”
Lex looked uncertain. His feet did not move.
“Please, Lex.”
He stared at her for a pregnant moment before he complied, half sitting, half standing at the end of the bed.
“Alright, Lex. Tell me about your friends.”
Eva listened quietly as Lex told her about his friends back in the Residential, asking questions when the conversation called for it. Before long, their exchange twisted and turned through topics of politics, news, and human nature.
; His words amazed her. She hadn’t known that a man could be so well spoken, so knowledgeable about the world around him. She drank in his every word until the lights outside clicked on, indicating morning. Even then, she didn’t want the conversation to end, knowing in her heart that she could listen to him speak for the rest of her life and not grow tired of the sound.
“How can you remember your home world? They wiped you as a child. You shouldn’t be able to remember anything.”
“That’s what they say. But sometimes I see something, smell something, or feel something and I get these flashes, dreams. I remember being on a ship with someone behind me. I can’t see him, but I feel safe. I remember deserts, a man with blue eyes and a big red beard. Sometimes I see a woman. She has dark, flowing hair, dark eyes. She’s wearing this purple dress that billows behind her as she runs to me, smiling.”
“Do you think it could be your mother?”
“I don’t know. They’re just dreams, visions.” He looked past her, as if he were seeing one of his dreams now.
“Lex?”
He grunted, refocused on her.
“Yes,” he cleared his throat. “Sorry.”
“We were always told that men couldn’t remember anything after they were wiped.”
“Did that make you feel better about doing it?”
“The High Council thinks it’s humane. It’s so you don’t get home sick.”
“Do you believe that?”
“It’s what we’re told.”
“Eva, you are an intelligent woman. How can you be so blind to so many things?”
“What do you mean?”
“They wipe us to keep us compliant. It has nothing to do with being humane. They wipe us so we won’t fight, so that they can mold us into what they want us to be.”
Eva paused, took his words to heart. “We thought it would help,” she whispered.
“Not having slaves would help.”
“Now you sound like Nadira.”
He shook his head, moved higher onto the bed and rested his head on a pillow. “I wish more women did. It’s like the High Council says something and everyone automatically thinks that it’s right. No one questions it. No one stands up and asks for the reasoning behind it. Sometimes I think that they wipe all of us, women and men, just to keep us in line.”
“That’s absurd.”
“If they did, we’d never know it. Think about it. There are so many things that I don’t understand about this place, things that are never questioned. Like the heat. It’s always so hot. Who decided that? Why does no one ask, why is it always so hot?”
“I’m quite chilly, actually.”
“Being cold on the inside and being cold on the outside are two different things.”
“What is that supposed to mean?!”
“It means that the cold that you women feel has nothing to do with the temperature. It could be a million degrees and you’d still feel like your freezing. It’s inside of you.”
“You’re a philosopher now, are you?”
“I’m just making an observation. If you don’t have love, you will always be cold on the inside.”
“We love. We love our mothers and our daughters and our sisters.”
“Not the way I see it. You worship your mothers, you raise your daughters to worship you, and you fight with your sisters. That’s not the same thing.”
“You’re being obtuse.”
“No, I’m being honest. You claim to have this familial love, but the love is cold. Where is the love that warms you, the love that pumps hot blood through your body, the love that lights a fire so hot in your soul that you fear you’ll explode? That’s what missing. The warmth that you feel with a look,” his eyes captured hers until Eva thought she would drown in their crimson depths. He moved closer,
“A touch.”
Closer. He placed one hand on her cheek, searing her skin.
She closed her eyes, leaned into his palm.
He ran his thumb over her lips, electrifying them, putting every nerve under his control.
“A kiss.”
And then his lips were on hers, and her body turned to flames. His hand trapped her head on either side, as her hands moved to his hair, her fingers lost in the soft, red strands.
This is what I’ve been missing, she thought.
She moved closer, and tried to deepen the kiss, but he broke from her, and turned away from her.
“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I don’t know how that happened. I’ll go now.”
He scurried off the bed and jogged towards the door.
“Wait!”
He turned back to her.
She paused. “Did you ever want something that you knew was bad for you, but you wanted it anyway?”
Lex froze, one foot out the door, staring at her.
“Yes.”
“What did you do about it?”
He took a step back into the room. “Do you want to do something you know you shouldn’t, Empress?”
Eva was still. “Very badly.”
His eyes stayed on her as he came towards the bed. A strange sense of danger ran down Eva’s spine. She knew she should tell him go, should keep him away, but something in his eyes held her there.
“Sometimes, you have to do the wrong things for your heart to feel right again.”
He found her then. Their lips clung to each other, wringing out every ounce of pleasure that they could. They tested and teased each other, found a rhythm, kept to it, changed it, found it anew.
He pulled away, his cheeks red, his breath coming in hard pants.
She whimpered at the loss of him.
“Do you feel that?” he asked.
“What?”
He placed her hand on his chest. Her eyes went wide as she felt his heart hammer against her fingers.
I did that to him.
A sense of pride grew in her.
She took his hand, placed it on her pounding heart.
He smiled.
“I never knew that I could feel like this,” she said.
“Neither did I.”
“What do we do?”
“What do you want to do, Empress?”
She held his gaze for a long while. Then she inclined her head, offering herself to him.
He whispered something in a language she didn’t understand. The words were harsh, and broken.
“What was that?” She asked.
He shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
He tangled his hands in her hair and took her mouth again in a kiss that devastated her. With lips and tongue, he pulled down her walls, and ripped through her prejudices. When his lips left hers, there was no doubt left in her mind.
He was nothing less than perfect.
She was nothing less than doomed.
Chapter 23
The hovercraft flew through the narrow tunnel that led to Habitat Beta. On either side of the thick glass, orange and black swirled and twisted in strange smoky shapes.
Nadira glanced at the dense air as she navigated through the tunnel.
I wonder what the founding mother’s thought when they first arrived here? How did they survive? How did they build this planet into what it is today? How did they not see how difficult it would be and immediately give up?
She smirked.
Stubborn, even then.
The tunnel ended at an Enforcer checkpoint. Beyond the checkpoint laid Habitat Beta, still shrouded in night. Light from the glowing street lamps reflected in the slick cobblestone, creating snaking towers that shivered beneath the feet of passing Enforcer patrols.
A shock of blue blocked the way forward. Any closer and Nadira’s hovercraft would immediately be disintegrated. She kept her foot firmly on the brake.
The vehicle’s front window turned white, fuzzed, then cleared as an Enforcer’s overly tanned face appeared.
“Good day Empress. May your mother be well. Your name, please?”
“Empress Nad
ira Marie.”
“Destination?”
Nadira froze.
If I say Empress Baleen, it may get back to Czarina Arees that I was here.
“I am here for the Square. I have reservations in the lodging area of Council. First thing tomorrow I plan on going shopping.”
“A bit early for shopping isn’t it? Lights don’t come back on for three more hours.”
“I didn’t sleep well so I decided to get a head start. I figured I’d go to my lodging, settle in, maybe take a nap, and then head out at first light.”
The Enforcer shook her head, tapped something into a touch screen.
“Okay then. Any slaves with you?”
“No officer.”
“It says here that you have a slave named Kiln.”
“Yes, officer. I left him at home. I like to shop alone.”
The Enforcer eyed Nadira for a long while.
Nadira kept a smile on her face while, on the inside, she swore. Women didn’t leave slaves home when they shopped. If they did, who would carry the packages?
The Enforcer’s beady eyes swept over the empty seats behind her. Nadira counted her heartbeats as the seconds ticked by.
There’s no time. You have to warn Empress Baleen before it’s too late.
Nadira’s heart rose into her throat, her breathing labored.
The Enforcer leaned away from the screen, pushed a button.
The blue wall disappeared.
“Proceed.”
Nadira’s heartbeat began to steady and she let out a breath.
She pushed on the accelerator a bit too hard, and the hovercraft zoomed forward and to the left. A tree quickly came into view. Nadira jammed on the brake and pulled the wheel hard to the right. The tree disappeared from view as Nadira was pitched forward. The seat’s anti-crash mechanism quickly kicked on, cocooning her in a gelatinous bubble misted with a chemical that would instantly relax her body. The hovercraft came to a halt yards away from the tree with its nose facing the street, its wheels now deployed and touching the ground.
Nadira shook uncontrollably, her eyes watering, her heart hammering against her ribs.
It’s fine. You’re okay. Everything will be okay. Just find Baleen, and warn her. Just find Baleen.
Swallowing hard, she tried to calm herself.
Just breathe. Focus.
A red light above her illuminated the bubble. Nadira pushed a button within the bubble, causing it to let out a hiss of air as it was sucked back into the seat.