The Initiative: Book One of the Jannah Cycle

by D. Brumbley

  “What difference would that make? I don’t know any of these people, I can’t choose anyone better for myself than a computer can. Clearly. Otherwise I would have already been married by now. I’m not some fresh, young thing. I’m twenty. Halfway dead already.” She sat up so that she could reach for the data core. “I didn’t show up here to find someone to love me, or to find someone to love. I seriously doubt that even exists. Who did it pick for you, huh? Some exotic-looking tiny thing? A beautiful woman with long hair and curls? Did you hack it to pick whoever you wanted?”

  “Among other reasons. Mostly I’m just an inquisitive son of a bitch who likes to know everybody else’s business before they do.” He grabbed her hand as she reached for the core on her leg, and his grip was surprisingly strong, for such a lean person. His hand was rougher than his almost-frail first impression would have led her to guess, and his grip on her didn’t waver. Neither did his smile as he looked over at her. “Are you always this angry?”

  “Are you always this incorrigible?” She snapped right back at him as she attempted to free her hand from his. “Do people not get angry when you blatantly ignore them where you’re from?”

  “Almost always, I just figured it’s best to ask right up front. And yes, I’m always this incorrigible.” His grin was unwavering as he held onto her hand, and he actually pulled her just a little closer to him as she struggled to free herself. “If you’re going to get this angry every time I offer you a chance to choose what you want, you’re gonna spend a lot of time angry.” His look softened slightly as he looked back and forth from one of her eyes to the other, as did his voice. “Though I’m gathering quickly that being angry most of the time wouldn’t be too far a change for you from what you’re used to.”

  A slow sigh escaped from Jessie’s lips and then she stopped struggling to try to pull away. “Listen, the only reason I’m here is because I want to have a life of my own that isn’t tainted by the life I already have here. You can judge me however you like, I don’t care. Just don’t … just don’t ruin Jannah for me, alright? I thought that you said we were friends.” He had just thrown a lot into her face quite unexpectedly, her potential matches the least of it, but the knowledge that he had the ability to hack the Consortium was huge, and all she could think was that he was trying to get her in trouble somehow by showing her. Why else would he trust her, someone he barely knew?

  “I’m not trying to ruin anything for you.” He released her hand slowly, and reached down to take his data core off her leg, the hologram winking out along with it as he replaced it on its chain around his neck. “No one in this Initiative wants Jannah to be a successful home for us more than I do. I don’t want to ruin that for anyone, or allow anyone to ruin it for everyone else.” There was a flash of anger behind the last statement that didn’t have an obvious source, but he kept going instead of stopping to explain. “I’m not judging you, for anything. In fact, past your basic file to show that you’ve never been married, never had any kids, are Type B positive and a Scorpio, I haven’t read anything farther into your history. I looked over your mom’s quickly, that’s how I knew she was on hospice. And I glanced over your sisters’. Interesting women, but they sound like some fairly heinous bitches when they want to be. The one article about the time Jenny burned down part of your high school over an ex-boyfriend said a lot about how crazy she can get in a pretty short span of time. Kind of impressive, in its own way.”

  “Yeah, well.” Jessie looked down at her legs before she said anything else. “I’d hate to think what she would do if she found out I was sleeping with her husband. I’d rather not find out.” She shook her head and looked back at him, expecting to see judgment in Gordon’s eyes over what she’d said now that she had revealed something so personal. The fact was that her sister was a bitch and Jessie was lonely, and those things didn’t help one another. “You’re the only person I know here, even briefly, and while I have no idea why you’re trusting me with knowing your secrets, but I can’t choose for myself. I’ll just fuck it up.”

  “I don’t think you would.” He gave her a small smile and leaned back on the windshield beside her with his arms stretched out wide, one of his hands moving to pull some of her hair back over her shoulder as if the two of them had been the most intimate of friends for their entire lives. His grin widened a little before he spoke. “Although now you do have me halfway questioning your taste in men. Her husband isn’t exactly a glowing specimen of humanity. But, then again, if he’d been that good, then you wouldn’t be here leaving him behind, I suppose.” He chuckled and put his hands back behind his head to relax. “If I had it to do over again, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have…well, I’ve slept with three different women. I can’t bring myself to regret the first one, though she’s nobody I would’ve chosen if I had really been thinking it through at the time. She was married for most of the time we were together. The second one was a nobody who just happened to be nearby and willing, so who knows, maybe she was married too. I have no idea. The third…well, I really shouldn’t have gotten involved with the third one, but that’s hindsight for you.”

  Jessie ran her hand over her hair that he had touched and leaned back as well, as though it didn’t bother her, his little touches, but they did. She was unsure exactly how much they bothered her, though, and why. Did she want to like him? “Do I look like a woman who can afford to be choosy?” She let out a bitter chuckle and then looked up into the sky. Earth was sparsely populated as it was, her hometown was even less populated, and she wasn’t exactly the cream of the crop. “If I regretted it and went back and changed it, I’d be a virgin instead.”

  He looked her over after her confession, and they sat on the car in silence as the wind picked up around them to roar in their ears and remind them of the world they wouldn’t feel again until they walked on a different one. Eventually, he turned to look at her, then slid off the hood and walked around to stand by her side of it. He was taller than his slouch gave him credit for, nearly her height exactly, which meant that as she laid out against the classic straight lines of the car, his face was near hers, and when he spoke, he leaned in with one arm across her waist to rest at her hip, his eyes only a few centimeters from hers. “You are gorgeous, Jessie. You can have anything and anyone you want, in this world or any other. All you have to do is choose what and who that is.” He looked her in the eye afterward, just to let her see the complete confidence he had in what he was telling her, then drew back slowly, his hand lingering on her waist and trailing down over her leg casually as he backed away from the car. “I’ll see you inside.”

  Jessie watched him go and then leaned her head back against the glass before she shook her head. Whoever Gordon was, he was crazy. And he was driving her crazy in more ways than she wanted to think about. Clearly someone with that kind of power could choose whoever and whatever he wanted, and she wasn’t about to admit to him that maybe she’d choose him instead of the men that were potentially her match. There was so much unknown about him that it intrigued her, but she was too afraid he would laugh in her face, even though he said he wasn’t the type. He was too unpredictable for her to figure out what was truth about him and what wasn’t. Jessie stayed outside until her new communicator alerted her that her turn was coming up, then slowly slid off the car to go inside. She just needed to keep to herself and move forward. That would get her to Jannah, right?

  20

  Anna and Logan sat in silence for a solid fifteen minutes just staring at the Consortium building before they finally emerged from Logan’s truck. They’d taken as much time as they could saying their goodbyes back at home before leaving to report, so much time that they were nearly about to miss their only chance to get to Jannah. There was less than an hour before the shuttle would leave, and it was obvious from the lack of people sitting in the waiting area that those who wanted to go were now waiting elsewhere in the building to board the ship and prepare for takeoff. Anna immediately slid to Logan’s side and
took his hand closest to her before he reached out for the door with his free hand. When he hesitated to open the door, she leaned in and kissed his cheek. “We’ve stewed over this enough. This is it. If we don’t go in now, they’ll leave us behind.”

  He nodded quietly in resignation and agreement, then reached into the bed of the truck and pulled out the two small bags they had packed with the few possessions they had decided they would take with them into orbit. They would never have enough of home with them, and even bringing such a small selection seemed more like a tease than anything, but Logan knew he’d be glad of the reminders once they were out of the atmosphere.

  Once they had the bags over their shoulders, Logan reached back into the truck, checking to make sure the fuel was still sufficient for a trip, then finally keyed in the instructions for it to return home without a driver. As soon as he stood back and closed the door, the truck eased into motion, carefully avoiding the two of them as it pulled out of the parking lot and started back the way they had come, quietly rumbling out of sight.

  Logan squeezed her hand as they watched it go, standing alone for a moment on the asphalt. The wind whipped Anna’s hair into her face and kicked up some of the dust from the Waste around them to pelt their arms and sting their noses just enough to notice. “Alright then.” He said with the last sigh he would allow himself. No easy way home, no way but forward. He leaned down and brushed Anna’s hair out of her face before he kissed her soundly, closing his eyes with his forehead resting against hers for a breath. “Let’s do this thing.”

  “Let’s do this thing.” She repeated against his lips and then walked hand-in-hand with him toward the facility. They stepped inside to a mostly-empty waiting area and then walked up to a desk where there was no line. They had clearly waited until the last minute. Logan signed in first, then Anna after, smiling just a little that she wrote Anna Bickford on the paper instead of Anna Prince. “Still hard to get used to, seeing Bickford after my name, but I like it.”

  “It suits you.” Logan beamed beside her as the man who’d taken their names headed away to get them processed. A moment later when someone came back, Logan’s eyebrows shot up in alarm at whatever was behind Anna, and when she turned around, she was face to face with the single tallest human being either of them had ever seen in person, striding toward them with a tablet tucked into one long-fingered hand and a friendly smile on his face. “Mr. and Mrs. Bickford. Fashionably late, but still right on time. Orion Al-Jabbar.” He offered his name along with his hand, shaking first Logan’s and then Anna’s as they craned their necks to look up at him. “Welcome to the party. Come on back, we’ll get you in the works.”

  “The party, huh?” Anna replied as she looked back at the now-empty waiting area, since the few stragglers had been seen ahead of them. “I’m not sure you know the definition of party. There are usually more people, definitely more booze, and typically pyrotechnics.”

  Orion actually grinned at that comment, walking beside Anna to escort them farther into the building. “We try and avoid the pyrotechnics onboard stations, but the rest, yeah, I’m familiar with that. Pyrotechnics tend to get a little out of control with oxygen supplies and all that. Doesn’t prevent the occasional flaming shot, though.”

  “Bummer. But I get it.” She bantered with a laugh as she looked up at the man again. “You know, I didn’t think of myself as that freakishly short, but you do a good job of making me look that way. You are taller than I ever thought the human race could get. So either you are descended from giants, or science played a role. Go science. Or giants, if that’s the case.”

  “The popular story when I was growing up was that my feet got caught in a centrifuge and the rest of me got whipped around until I stretched.” He smiled down at the woman, who was admittedly on the shorter side when it came to the women he’d spent most of his time around. “So no, no giants involved that I’m aware of. And it turns out the human race can get quite a lot taller. My doctor tells me I’m actually in the middle of a growth spurt. Hopefully my last. Time will tell.”

  “Growth spurt? What are you, fourteen?” That was the last time Logan could remember really popping upward with any kind of speed, though he’d gone from six one to six two in the last year.

  “Twenty-four.” Orion gave the man a smile and a shrug. “Science just has me taking my time with it, I guess.”

  “Good God.” Anna said in response to that. “You’re going to get taller? And you’re twenty-four?” He didn’t look older than her and Logan, but obviously he was. Anna noticed the ring on his hand and she looked at it before she looked up at him again. “I hope your wife is some sort of Amazonian woman, because…yikes.”

  “Well, Amazons were darker, I thought. Little closer to my coloring than my wife’s. But otherwise, yeah, she manages.” Orion grinned just at the thought of Mercury, and they came around the corner to where the medical offices had been set up, where Mercury was making some final notes on a tablet about a previous patient. “This would be her, Doctor Mercury Finnegan.” He said loudly enough for Mercury to hear herself announced, then went up to her side. “These look to be our last stragglers, Mr. and Mrs. Bickford.”

  Mercury looked up and gave a polite smile as her fingers tapped once more to save the patient file from the last and get the next one. “I’m very glad to see that you two made it in time. We wouldn’t want to leave anyone behind that actually wants to be a part of such an amazing opportunity.” She looked over at Orion and smiled brighter with pride before she kissed his cheek. “It looks like I pulled up Mr. Bickford’s file next. Do you want to wait with Mrs. Bickford until Dr. Patel is finished with her patient?”

  “Sure. I’ll take her out of order to go get geared up, we need to start pre-flight soon.” He left a hand on Mercury’s back as he pulled away with a smile, then nodded off to one side to direct Anna away. “Right this way, shorty. Time to meet your new wardrobe.”

  “Shorty? I take offense to that, it’s not my fault that you’re genetically altered to be a giant. That does not make me short, that makes you tall.” She paused to consider her argument. “Not the best argument I’ve used to make a point, but it’ll do.”

  Mercury chuckled a little as they watched Orion and Mrs. Bickford walk away, and then she turned her attention back to Mr. Bickford in front of her. She had loosened her hair from the braid that she had it in earlier, which had left her with some exhausted waves in her hair, but she was attempting to push it back as she motioned toward the exam room. “Your wife seems like quite the personality, Mr. Bickford.”

  “Wait till she gets going.” He gave the doctor a smile as he stepped inside, not entirely sure what to expect from an exam, since he had thought all of that was already taken care of. Still, he surveyed the place like he owned it and was only there because he was permitting himself to be. He looked over the woman who was about to look him over, and couldn’t help but think that Anna’s assessment had been about right. Apart from her pale skin and striking red hair, the doctor was everything Logan had imagined an Amazon would be when they’d learned cursory stories about mythology in school. “She can be a handful, but that’s got its own virtues.”

  “I’m sure. Both of you wouldn’t be here unless you had something important to bring to the table.” Mercury tapped her tablet a few times as it brought up everything that she needed to know about her patient and what she needed to administer. “It looks like I just need to do a brief physical exam, take a finger pinprick, and give you an immune booster along with your first round of CV treatment. Your iron count was a little low at your last exam, so that’s why they want me to take a sample so that you can be tested again. Nothing that can’t be fixed with a little dietary supplement.” She smiled and then nodded toward the curtain standing up in the corner of the room. “You can undress over there, or I can step out. Do you think that you’ll want an anti-nausea for the trip? I’ve recommended it to everyone, but it’s up to you.”

  “I haven’t had any t
rouble with motion-sickness before now. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.” He declined, and left his bag near the door to head over to the curtain and get undressed. He felt a slight awkwardness about it, stranger close to his age as she was, but he’d gotten exams from Sierra before too, and she was a great deal younger and less professional than the woman in front of him. Still, he was going to need to keep his eyes on other parts of the room, otherwise the medical gown provided was going to show a little more definition than was probably appropriate. “Have you and the giant been married long?” He asked from behind the curtain as he kicked off his boots and tucked his socks inside them just outside the curtain.

  “No, actually.” She said as she finished typing in his order, and then waited for the appropriate supplies to dispense from a large box sitting on one of the counters. “We’re newlyweds. We got married only a few weeks after we met.” Mercury looked over the syringes that were dispensed as she waited for him. “We were matched and hit it off really well, and the rest is history, as they say. It’s been an exciting time, getting married and getting ready for Jannah at the same time.”