Ascendant Unrest

by Matthew S. Cox

  “We’ve been in here forever.” Sarah lowered her feet to the floor and stood. “Ugh. I need a new curtain. It’s all crusty and stiff. That sewer water had so much crud in it. This is exactly why I didn’t wanna wash it.” She fussed at her dress.

  “I thought you said it wasn’t a sewer.” Whatever had been in the water had left Maya’s shirt and pants with the same uncomfortable rigidity after drying.

  “Whatever… drain water.” Sarah paced around the table. On her third orbit, she tested the door. “Yeah. They locked us in. I knew it. We’re arrested.”

  Even expecting it, hearing proof pulled the rug out from under Maya’s calm and got her hands shaking. “M-maybe they just do that automatically. You know, like they don’t want two little kids wandering off on their own and getting hurt?”

  “Not funny.” Sarah folded her arms. The lowest wrap of her curtain-dress came loose in back and dangled down. “The Authority doesn’t think we’re people.”

  “That’s what we’re trying to change.” She sighed. “People fear and hate the Authority because everyone knows Ascendant bought them. They weren’t keepers of the law before, just company thugs. And that bitch doesn’t care about anyone who doesn’t have money. They’ve been nice to us. It’s already changing. A lot of Authority are veterans like your dad.”

  Sarah abandoned the door and paced around the table again. The hanging scrap of fabric sagged longer, dragging on the floor. The lowest part still pinned together across her backside drooped, threatening to rip loose and fall. Maya stared at it as another safety pin pulled free from the material.

  “Uhh…” said Maya.

  “They’re probably trying to figure out what to do with us. We’re too little to kill. Maybe we’re too little to put in jail.” She rubbed her forehead, sighing.

  Another pin tore away, and the brittle fabric slid down, exposing her butt. Gaps between where she had wrapped the curtain around her body stretched at the safety pins, widening, exposing more skin.

  “Umm, Sarah?” asked Maya.

  “What?” Sarah stomped, hands balled to fists at her sides, and the rest of the garment broke free of her shoulders. She clamped her arms tight, catching the falling material and barely managing to keep her crotch covered as safety pins rained to the floor around her. Rigid, wide eyed, and red-faced, she shivered in place. The mirror behind her reflected her paleness, skin tiger-striped with dirt wherever the dress hadn’t covered. “Crap.”

  Maya shifted forward in her chair and started pulling her arms into her sleeves. “Take my shirt.”

  “Keep it. It’s not long enough.” Sarah shuffled back to her chair, holding the clump of disintegrating fabric to cover her crotch. “As if being arrested couldn’t get any scarier.”

  Maya looked at the dead garment. “Guess that curtain was pretty old.”

  “Guess.” Sarah sniffled. Her face darkened to match her hair color.

  “My shirt is long enough to cover me. Take my pants.”

  Sarah looked at her, guilty, but pleading. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” said Maya without hesitation. “They’re way loose on me, so you should fit.”

  “’Kay.”

  Maya stood and undid the button at her waist. Before she could shove her pants down, the door opened.

  Sarah screamed, curling up in a ball on the chair.

  Officer Harris peeked around the edge. “Sarah, is it? Here…” The woman hurried over, set a fat plastic-wrapped pouch containing grey fabric on the table, and promptly backed out, closing the door.

  Sarah stared at it.

  “What’s wrong?” Maya blinked.

  “I don’t wanna wear a prison suit.” She shivered. “I’d rather be naked.”

  “It’s not a prison suit.” Maya pointed at it. “Looks like sweat pants. They don’t make prison suits outta that stuff. Prison suits are like bright orange or yellow.”

  Sarah tore the packet open, discovering a plain grey sweatshirt, sweat pants, and pink flip-flops. She tossed the mangled curtain aside, dressed in haste, and sat once more, arms crossed over her chest. The clothes appeared sized for a tiny woman and fit her with plenty of room to spare. “Wow, it’s so soft.”

  “See?” Maya grinned. “They’re being nice to us.”

  “What are they going to do with us? How long are they going to keep us locked in here?”

  “I dunno.” Maya swung her feet back and forth, mildly jealous of Sarah’s new flip-flops. Of course, she loved her sneakers more, but damn kidnappers and their horrible timing. “Before the war, they had this social services thing that used to help kids like us, but I don’t know if they still have it.”

  “Are they going to separate us?” Sarah grabbed her arm.

  “No. I’ll completely lose my shit if they try.” Maya put a hand over Sarah’s. Four seconds later, dread that the Authority might separate them made her break out in sobs. After losing Genna, being taken away from Sarah would break her. She’d do something drastic.

  “I won’t let them split us up.” Sarah pulled Maya into a standing hug. “No way.”

  Maya’s bawling leveled off to quiet sniffles as she clung.

  Heavy footsteps coming down the hallway outside a few minutes later gave Maya back some confidence, or at least enough presence of mind to hide her emotions. The door opened, revealing Officer West and another man in Authority armor. Neither had helmets, and both appeared warm and cheerful.

  The newcomer handed Maya a smaller set of pink flip-flops.

  She put them on one after the next and peered up at them. “Please don’t split us apart.”

  Sarah leaned in front of her protectively.

  “No plans for that, Maya.” Officer West gestured at the door. “Come on. We’ve found your mother and are going to bring you home now.”

  Genna’s alive! Maya squealed with delight; elation got her trembling. “Thank you!”

  Officer West took her hand and led her out into the hallway. The other blueberry escorted Sarah the same way. They turned left, going deeper into the corridor rather than back the way they’d entered from. Maya didn’t pay it any mind, assuming the building had more than one entrance and they weren’t going back to the garage full of patrol cars.

  Two hallways and three turns later, West approached an elevator flanked by vending machines and poked the call button. A double-width corridor ran perpendicular to the elevator bank, with glass-windowed offices on both sides and a huge room full of cubicles and desks about forty feet away. A few people close enough to notice them waved at her and smiled.

  West guided her into the elevator, the other man and Sarah following.

  “Is she hurt? I watched her get shot,” said Maya, bouncing on her toes.

  “Didn’t look hurt to me.” The other blueberry shrugged.

  Maya’s mind raced for an explanation of what she’d seen. Maybe the bullets had hit the car and bounced over Genna, scaring her so bad she fainted? Maybe they shot her rifle and somehow didn’t hit her, or they bounced off a button on her shirt or something and… She bit her lip. I don’t care how. She’s alive!

  Lights on the panel by the door lit up as the elevator climbed past the second-through-sixth floors, stopping by ‘H.’

  Maya furrowed her eyebrows at it. “Why are we going―?”

  The doors parted, revealing the roof, as well as a small white helicopter with an Ascendant logo on the side. A young blonde woman in a dark jumpsuit sat at the controls, and a middle-aged hulk of a man in an expensive black suit stood by the open side door. The rotors glided in a lazy spin, adrift in the wind.

  Her jaw dropped. “No… no! That woman’s not my mother!” She backed up. “I don’t wanna go there! I want my real mommy!”

  Officer West scooped her off her feet and carried her into a stiff breeze.

  “No! Please! No!” Maya squirmed, losing her flip-flops as she kicked and struggled.

  West handed her off to the big man, who pinned her wrists together in one
hand and held her under his arm like an angry football. Sarah let the other blueberry lead her to the helicopter without a peep or sign of protest, though she did stoop to collect Maya’s flops on the way.

  After Sarah climbed into the mini-heli, the big man shook West’s hand and boarded, pulling the door shut. He sat in a rear-facing seat with Maya in his lap, his giant arm pinning her against his chest.

  “Help!” Maya stared out the window at West. She squirmed more out of protest at being held than a serious attempt to overpower such a big man. “Vanessa’s gonna kill me! She doesn’t want me!”

  “Calm down, kid,” said the big guy. “Your mother’s been worried sick about you. She’s not going to hurt you.”

  Maya kept wriggling and fighting. “Get offa me!”

  “Look kid, you got three choices: duct tape, a shot of night-night juice, or behaving yourself.”

  “Grr!” Maya glared at him.

  He held up a little black case. “Night-night?”

  Sarah’s eyes widened into a terrified, pleading stare.

  “Fine.” Maya sagged limp. “No needles.”

  “You okay back there?” asked the pilot, who sounded like a teenage girl.

  “Yeah,” said the man. “Let’s go.”

  Sarah folded her hands in her lap, staring guiltily at the floor.

  The whole cabin vibrated with the engines winding up, and within a moment, the roof of the Authority station seemed to fall away while they stood still. A moment or so after liftoff, the big guy picked Maya up, spun her around to face him, and set her in the seat next to Sarah.

  “Now I know you’re not dumb enough to jump.”

  Maya trembled at the thought of being taken to the woman who said ‘go ahead kill her. I’ll make another one.’ She couldn’t imagine anything happening other than Vanessa having her killed as revenge for that video. “I’m gonna throw up.”

  “Hey, kiddo, don’t be scared,” said the pilot via a speaker in the ceiling. “This is safer than a car.”

  “I’m not afraid of crashing.” Maya put a hand on her belly, which gurgled. The essence of peanut butter and jelly flooded her throat. “Vanessa’s going to kill me. And I don’t mean like a kid says, ‘oh, Mom’s gonna kill me.’ I mean literally end my life. Please fly us to the Hab and let us go.”

  “Aww, you poor thing,” cooed the pilot. “Whatever those awful people who kidnapped told you, it’s a lie. You’re so lucky to get out of that filthy place in one piece.”

  “That filthy place is my home,” mumbled Maya.

  The big guy pulled out a minicomputer and began reading.

  Sarah rubbed her hands down her thighs over and over again, though her expression gave no clue as to whether she adored her new clothes or did it out of nerves. Maya leaned against her, clinging to her arm. She’d only ever seen her friend wearing that toga-like curtain. The clean sweat suit made her look like a Citizen.

  They were watching us. That woman brought her clothes too fast. She tapped her foot on air. Maybe the Authority had seen the crummy improvised dress as soon as they’d been brought in and decided to replace it right away, not as a reaction to it falling to pieces. Maya fidgeted at her pants, hoping they wouldn’t meet a similar fate. Sarah’s dress had been brittle even before she found it. Those curtains were likely older than her and had been exposed to the elements for years before Sarah ever touched them.

  Out of nowhere, Maya got angry at The Dad for not taking care of his daughter.

  The Sanctuary Zone gave way to the scattered debris of Dead Space. Maya leaned closer, peering past Sarah at the left side windows.

  “Uhh, where are you taking us? You’re leaving the Sanc.” Maya looked at the man. “Are you going to kill us?”

  The man looked up from his device and sighed. “You’re obsessed with being killed, kid. What did those Brigade morons do to you?”

  Maya folded her arms. “Well, at first, they kidnapped me trying to get Xenodril. I figured out pretty quick that Vanessa decided it cheaper to just let them have me than try and send someone to help, so I had to save myself. I knew I was in deep shit when they vid-called her for a ransom. Vanessa looked me in the eye and told them to kill me. She said she’d even watch if it got them to stop bothering her.”

  “You don’t believe she really meant that, do you?” asked the pilot, sounding shocked.

  “Uhh, yeah. I do. If you saw the look on her face, you would too.” Maya scowled at the floor. “I found a real mother, someone who actually cares about me.” And she’s dead. Her composure cracked, a crumbling dam about to yield to the fury of a penned-in ocean. She pushed it aside with anger. “I’m surprised she paid for the fuel for you to come get me. Maybe you should use that duct tape. I prefer to be tied up when I’m being kidnapped against my will.”

  Sarah shot her an ‘are you nuts?’ stare.

  “Against your will? Is there such a thing as being kidnapped willingly?” asked the big guy.

  “Hah!” The pilot laughed. “Don’t do that to Bruno. His brain can’t take it.”

  Maya blinked. “Really? His name is Bruno?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s Benson.”

  “He looks like a Bruno though, doesn’t he?” asked the pilot.

  Benson sighed.

  “She’s far too happy,” muttered Sarah.

  “Okay, you seem like nice people.” Maya grabbed the seat on either side of her legs. “Will you please take us back to the Hab? Don’t let her kill me.”

  “Relax, kid.” Benson lowered his microcomputer again with a trace of a sigh. “She is not going to hurt you.”

  Maya curled up in the seat, clinging to Sarah. Faced with two options, going out the door of a helicopter in midair or being brought to Vanessa, she found herself struggling to make a choice. Benson continued reading. Aside from the pilot’s occasionally cheery humming, no one spoke for about fifteen minutes.

  Light along the ground made Maya look at the door, where a narrow window by the floor offered a view of a small pocket of modernity, a tiny Sanctuary Zone. She stretched tall, up on her knees in the seat to peer out the side window. A long strip of glow cut across the bleak darkness toward the glimmering castle-like sprawl of the Baltimore Sanctuary Zone, a connecting road.

  That has to be the Dublin Protected District. Maya’s brain leapt into gear, remembering old AuthNet sessions and e-learns. About thirty miles northeast of Baltimore, the DPD held mostly residence buildings, parks, and a couple malls for the well-to-do Citizens. Fair bet the Authority there would be still on Vanessa’s payroll. Being taken here wouldn’t have been as terrifying if she at least had some hope Genna might be out there still.

  Defeat sank its teeth into her heart, and she wept in silence upon Sarah’s shoulder.

  The mini-helicopter entered a slow, descending left turn, heading for a small pad notched from the side of a tall, white-and-mirror skyscraper. A taper narrowed the upper quarter of the building. Six stories continued over the small patio-like landing area that held a raised hexagonal pad, a walkway, and a door, along with an array of lights.

  The helicopter alighted on the metal hexagon with a barely noticeable tap.

  Benson stared at Maya, his expression beleaguered. “Are you going to flip out again?”

  “How likely is it for crying, begging, and pleading to change your mind?” asked Maya.

  Sarah glanced at her. “It’s not going to help.”

  “Listen to your friend, kiddo.” Benson gestured at her.

  “Fine.” Maya frowned. “I hope you’ll be able to sleep at night when I mysteriously vanish.”

  Benson disembarked and helped Sarah out of the helicopter. Downdraft from the rotors whipped her hair into a fury. She tried her best to hold it down and backed toward the stairway leading to the roof from the helipad. He grasped Maya under the armpits and lifted her out, setting her on her feet before taking her by the wrist in a gentle but firm hold.

  Flip-flops snapping against her heels, Maya
trudged reluctantly down three steps and along a path defined from the roof by reflective yellow paint. At the far end, a silver double door opened, revealing an elevator. Benson tapped the button for the 88th floor, two below the landing pad.

  Doors on the opposite side of the elevator opened when it came to a stop, exposing a short corridor with old-looking paintings of landscapes on either wall between fake plants. Benson entered first, the pale carpet muting his footsteps on the way to a burnished steel door with an electronic access panel. Maya stumbled behind him, futilely trying to resist being dragged by the arm. The air smelled too clean, laced with the fragrance of flowers and wood polish.

  Benson swiped his hand at the panel. A few seconds later, it beeped and the door opened.

  In the middle of a fancy, penthouse apartment stood Vanessa Oman, dark brown skin striking in contrast to her peach-colored skirt suit and matching shoes; a spray of tiny blue flowers erupted from her breast pocket.

  “Maya, dear.” Vanessa smiled. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  The convulsion hit her before she could think; Maya lurched forward and threw up all over Benson’s shoes.

  21

  On Top of the World

  Benson jumped back as Maya erupted with a fountain of puke. She collapsed on all fours in the little hallway, heaving, choking up half-digested PBJ and milk.. Sarah squatted behind her, patting her on the back and fighting to hold back tears.

  “Uhh,” said Benson. “Guess she got airsick.”

  Sarah kept patting until Maya stopped heaving.

  “Go clean yourself up then. And try not to track it on the carpet.” Vanessa dismissed Benson with a wave.

  “Right away, ma’am.” He slipped off his shoes and hurried deeper into the apartment.

  “I had no idea you had issues with flying,” said Vanessa. “Or I’d have sent a car.”

  Maya wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, glaring at her. “You barely know anything about me at all.”