by J. J. Green
It was going to be a hairy ride.
“Marcia,” Parthenia said. “Don’t drive dangerously. Don’t drive in front of other vehicles.”
“Maybe there’s an automatic setting,” Oriana suggested.
“Yes,” said Parthenia. “Marcia. If your vehicle can travel automatically, input the capital city as the destination and stop driving.”
Marcia tapped keys on a pad next to the seat. Her arms relaxed.
“Phew,” said Ferne, also relaxing in his seat. “Hey,” he said, “I forgot to ask. Why are we going to the capital?”
“I thought it might be somewhere we could find Carina,” Parthenia replied. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“Will we find Carina soon?” Darius asked.
“I don’t know,” Parthenia replied. “I hope so.”
The traffic on the highway was building up as more and more of the hover vehicles joined it from side roads. Parthenia wondered why, if the vehicles could fly, they didn’t travel directly over land to their destinations, but she guessed that requiring them to follow roads like wheeled vehicles was for safety. Or maybe the Dirksens reserved the skies for their own vehicles.
Parthenia couldn’t see anything resembling a city in the distance. From her seat next to Marcia, she had a good view of the vehicle’s dash but nothing on it stated the distance to their destination. The capital could be hours or days away.
While they were traveling along, Parthenia prepped her brothers and sister with the story she’d made up to tell Jace. If they needed to explain themselves to strangers in the future, they were to pretend they had gotten lost and they only needed directions to the nearest town or city, from where they would contact their parents to come and pick them up. They were to say they were going home to their parents after visiting their relatives and that Parthenia was looking after them. She would pretend to be eighteen.
As soon as she could find out more information about the country, Parthenia would pick a distant town for them to name as their home. She told her sister and brothers they could to fill in more details to make the story sound plausible but they were not to deviate from the main parts. The children began to make up names for the relatives they had been visiting and fill in other small details, enjoying themselves with imagining a normal family life and upbringing, until the story almost felt real to Parthenia.
If only it were real. Their fantasy life sounded much more pleasant than their current situation. Parthenia and Darius were still wearing the shirts Jace had lent to them. They didn’t have anything else to wear. None of them had any food or water or money to buy any. As soon as Marcia was no longer Enthralled their problems would return.
Parthenia hoped they would reach the capital soon.
Chapter Fifteen
Asha’s apartment was cramped but it contained the small, spare bedroom where she’d said Carina could sleep. What Asha hadn’t mentioned was her live-in boyfriend. When Asha and Carina had arrived after their long day’s work, he’d been lying on the sofa in the small living room. The boyfriend, who Asha introduced as Cavin, seemed to be extremely relaxed and cheerful. He was sprawled out as he played games on an interface.
“Hey, babe,” he said to Asha after she’d shown Carina the spare room. “When are we gonna eat?”
“Soon, honey. Soon.” Asha went into the tiny kitchen and Carina followed her. “You can take a shower while I cook,” Asha said. “I’ll clean up after dinner.”
“Aren’t you too tired to cook?” Carina asked. “How about I buy us some takeout? I saw we passed some restaurants on the way here.” The little hole-in-the-wall eating joints Carina had seen were clearly off-network. Rather than taking network orders and sending out the food via drones, those kinds of places sold on the street, for cash.
Asha looked relieved. “Well, if you’re offering… ”
“Sure. If I give him the money maybe Cavin can go and buy us something. You two must know the best places.”
“Oh.” Asha peeked around Carina into the living room. “Cavin’s… It’s probably better not to do that. I’ll go.”
“No, in that case I’ll go. You shower. I’ll be back soon.”
Cavin didn’t acknowledge Carina as she returned through the lounge and left the apartment. She went down in the elevator to the ground floor, though the clanking of the ancient mechanism didn’t inspire much trust. The streets in that area were too narrow for hover vehicles. Apartment blocks towered on both sides and skinny children played games there with toys they’d made from trash.
Carina was immediately thrown back to her own childhood. She’d been a skinny kid playing with trash once too, though at the time she’d barely known life could be better. She didn’t pity the kids too much. She’d been happy enough with very little in life except the love and care of her grandmother, for as long as the old woman had lived anyway.
Skirting the playing children, Carina walked down the dirty street and stopped at the first restaurant she saw. The place sold only one thing: a soup with noodles and meat. The origin of the meat wasn’t specified. Carina bought three large containers covered with lids. The boy who was serving was so young he could easily have been one of the kids Carina had passed. After paying for the food, she returned to Asha’s apartment.
Cavin hadn’t changed position all the time Carina had been gone and he was still playing on the interface. Asha came out of the shower dressed in a bathrobe. “Great, I love that soup. Thanks, Tammy. Put them down on the table. I’ll get chopsticks and spoons.”
Cavin finally moved, swinging his feet off the sofa and reaching for the nearest container of soup. He peeled back the lid, took the chopsticks Asha handed him and began to eat. Carina also dug into the steaming broth and noodles. The food was welcome after the puny, poor quality lunch that they’d received at work. After the first mouthful, however, she lowered her chopsticks and stared into the bowl.
“Is something wrong?” Asha asked. “Don’t you like it?”
“No,” Carina replied. “Nothing’s wrong. It tastes good.” She resumed eating but the feeling that had made her pause persisted. The noodle soup tasted almost exactly like the one Nai Nai used to make. Carina wondered if she was imagining it. After her grandmother had died, Carina had never again come across the dishes the old woman had cooked. Yet the more she ate, the more certain she was that, halfway across the galactic sector from her childhood home, she was eating a dish that she’d thought was a family recipe.
Asha was watching her. “Something is wrong, isn’t it? Do you feel sick? We’ve never gotten ill from eating this before.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine. The food’s great.”
Cavin was eating at a fast rate. Anticipating that the man would be back on the interface the moment he’d finished, Carina said, “I was wondering, would it be okay if I checked the news after dinner?”
“Sure,” Asha replied. “Any particular reason? Not a lot goes on around here. Or at least not much that actually gets reported.”
“No,” said Carina. “No reason. Just want to catch up. You mean that news about the Dirksens doesn’t get reported, right? I heard they only arrived a few years ago. What was it like?”
Asha made a noise of disgust. “It was awful and it’s only gotten worse. The actual takeover was pretty bloodless. The Dirksens had done their research and found out exactly who held the power. After they arrived, they targeted only those people and took them out. Their families too. But the rest of us they left alone, just about. It all happened so fast, and our military was always weak. I guess no one ever thought anyone would be interested in our boring little planet. Turned out we were wrong. We hardly put up a fight. The Dirksens tried to sugar-coat it of course. They sent out propaganda telling us the planetary government was corrupt and that they were here to liberate us. They said we were backward and they would help us modernize. They gave us the hover drive technology, saying it was the first step in our “upgrade.”
“But their tune so
on changed. The Dirksens basically replaced everyone who had any money or influence in Ostillonian society with someone affiliated with their clan. If you weren’t prepared to hand over a percentage of profits and kiss their asses they replaced you, one way or another. After news of disappearances, suicides, and accidental deaths started getting around, no one resisted any longer. Once you felt a Dirksen hand on your shoulder you gave them what they wanted, or accepted that your days were numbered.”
“And what’s it like now?” Carina asked, wondering how much of the mechanics of the takeover were Langley Dirksen’s responsibility. Yet the woman seemed to think her family’s control of Ostillon was benevolent.
“They’re slowly tearing everything apart,” said Asha. “I mean, we didn’t know how good we had it until the Dirksens started sticking their noses in wherever they thought they could turn a profit. You know the work we did today? Well, things didn’t ever used to be that bad. There was always some kind of work if you wanted it. You didn’t use to see people left behind. Now the supervisors are making ten people do the work of twenty and pocketing the extra wages. Everyone takes their cut all the way to the top and the Dirksens don’t only ignore it, they positively encourage it. It’s us poor saps at the bottom who lose out every time, and things are only set to get worse.”
Cavin drained the dregs of broth from his container and put it down. He pushed the bowl away and reached for the interface.
“Er, could I check that?” Carina asked.
“Yeah, let Tammy use it for a minute, hon,” said Asha.
Wordlessly, Cavin passed the screen over. He got up and went into the bathroom. Carina quickly set to work scanning the news for the region and the international news for the planet. There was no mention of four unidentifiable children being found. However, no reports mentioned strange, inexplicable activities or events either, Carina noted with relief. It looked like her mage siblings had managed to stay out of trouble so far.
While she had the use of the interface, Carina looked up general information about Ostillon. The ritual at the Mech Battles still played on her mind. She was certain the fact that the person had created elixir was not a coincidence, but she also couldn’t even guess what it meant. Mage history said their kind had lived in that galactic sector, dispersed and hidden, ever since it was first settled eons previously. The story Carina had learned from Nai Nai was that mages had been one of the first groups of colonizers, running from persecution on humanity’s original home, a lost planet called Earth.
It made sense that something of their influence might remain in the cultures and religions of worlds where they’d settled. Had Ostillon been one of those worlds? And if it had, was the fact significant? If mages had lived on the planet they appeared to have been long forgotten. No one seemed to know that elixir was being created in the ritual, so it had lost its meaning.
Cavin was getting restless. At his third cough, Carina returned the interface to him. “I’ll take a shower now if that’s okay,” she said to Asha.
“Sure,” Asha said. “Take your time. The hot water comes with the rent, though that’s changing next month.” She sighed and began to clear away the empty food containers. “Everything gets more and more expensive all the time.”
Carina went into the bathroom and closed the door. She found that it didn’t have a lock but that didn’t bother her. Both Cavin and Asha knew she was in there. She undressed. There was nowhere to put her clothes except on the basin so she piled them into it and stepped into the stall.
For the first time since Harmon’s beating Carina could properly assess the damage. Bruises stood out on her back, upper arms, and thighs. It wasn’t the first time she’d come off worse in a fight, and Stefan Sherrerr would have treated her worse, but this time Carina particularly hated the effects. More than ever, the injustice of what had happened angered her. The Dirksens and Sherrerrs were a menace across the sector. Carina wished she was in a position to fight them, but what could she realistically do? The most she could hope for would be to find her siblings and escape far from their influence, perhaps even to another sector.
As she pondered the rivalry between the clans, a memory popped into Carina’s mind. Ever since noticing the woman with the spiral hair design at Langley’s party, she’d been wondering where she’d seen her before. Now she knew: it had been at the Sherrerr stronghold on Ithiya. She’d gone to see Calvaley to ask permission to visit Bryce in the men’s quarters but the Sherrerr officer had been taking a holo call.
Carina hadn’t seen the other caller’s face but the hairstyle was so distinctive she was sure it was the same person. The last place she would have expected to see an acquaintance of the Sherrerrs was at a Dirksen gathering. It was no wonder it had taken Carina so long to make the connection. What did it mean? Was Langley’s friend an informant? A spy? Had Carina interrupted a call where the woman was passing secret information to Calvaley?
As she washed soap out of her hair, Carina wondered if she should do anything about her revelation. It took her less than a second to come to a decision. No. What did she care if the Dirksens had a Sherrerr spy in their midst? She had nothing to gain from telling them and a whole lot to lose. Yet she feared what the fact might mean for Asha and other Ostillonians. Langley Dirksen had said the planet was a hidden bolthole for her clan. If someone the Dirksens trusted was feeding the Sherrerrs classified information, Ostillon wouldn’t remain a secret for very long.
Carina had seen first hand the devastation of a planetwide attack. Asha might think things were bad now but they were probably going to get much worse.
A creak distracted Carina from her thoughts. The bathroom door was opening. At first, she expected that Asha wanted to ask or tell her something but the door only opened a short distance. A male hand and arm appeared, groping toward the basin where Carina had put her clothes. Cavin. Cavin was trying to steal her stuff.
Carina jumped out of the shower and slammed the door on his arm. Cavin shrieked. She opened and slammed the door twice more, and then threw it open. Cavin fell to his knees, still screaming. Asha ran through from the kitchen.
“What did you do to him?” she shouted.
“Not as much as I’d like to do,” said Carina, grabbing her clothes.
“She broke my arm,” Cavin sobbed. “I think she broke it.”
“Get out of my apartment,” Asha said. “After everything I did for you, you go and attack my boyfriend.”
“He was trying to steal from me,” said Carina. “How else do you think this happened? Why would I hit him for no reason?” She began to get dressed.
“My arm,” Cavin wept. “It hurts so bad.”
“So what if he was trying to steal from you?” said Asha. “You didn’t have to half kill him!”
Carina pulled on her top. “Do yourself a favor, Asha. Get rid of him. He’s a bum and he’s using you.”
“No! Don’t listen to her, Asha. I love you.” Cavin cursed and tenderly touched his assaulted arm.
“Get out,” Asha said to Carina. “Just leave, Tammy. And don’t bother turning up for work tomorrow. I’ll make sure you won’t be hired.”
“Don’t worry,” Carina said. “I’m not staying here another second.” She marched to the door and went out.
Too angry to wait for the elevator, Carina took the stairs. As she ran down the steps two at a time, she wondered where she could spend the night. The Dirksens would still be searching for her intensively. She had to find somewhere they wouldn’t think to look.
Chapter Sixteen
Several hours later, Carina was dead on her feet. She hadn’t slept since the night of the Mech Battle, and even then it had only been for a few hours. She’d also been beaten, she’d worked through the small hours to escape from Langley’s estate, and then she’d labored all day. She was on her last legs, yet she didn’t seem able to find anywhere she considered safe to sleep.
As she’d wandered around the capital’s downtown, Carina had taken the opportunity to b
uy new clothes. After pushing her old ones down a trash chute, she’d begun her search for a safe sleeping place.
Asha’s apartment had been ideal. The Dirksens would never have found her there, in one of thousands of semi-legal residences. Now her options were limited. Without ID, the more expensive places were off limits to her. In time, she could solve that problem, but not quickly. Yet Carina feared staying at the cheapest hotels and hostels where ID wasn’t required. They would be the first places the Dirksens would look.
Rounding the corner of a quiet street, Carina saw a heavily decorated building that rose from the ground in four tiers of decreasing size. Judging by the people wandering in and out of it, the structure seemed to be a public place. Carina walked down the street and through the wide, doorless entrance. The interior was as brightly decorated as the exterior, only while the walls outside were covered in patterns, inside the decorations were re-enactments of stories or events.
The building seemed to be a place of worship. Several people were kneeling facing a group of deities. One person had prostrated himself, his forehead pressed against the floor as he mumbled. None of the worshipers took any notice of Carina.
Again, she recalled the enigmatic ritual she’d witnessed after the Mech Battles. Was this place dedicated to the same religion? On the various worlds she’d visited as a merc, several faiths usually competed for the inhabitants’ devotion. But at that moment, Carina was too tired to investigate further. She had to sleep.
On each side of the altar that held the statues of five deities, passages led deeper into the building. Carina took the right-hand one. Depictions of the religion’s stories continued along its walls before it opened out into a space on the other side of the statues. This room held benches, presumably for lengthier sessions of worship. Other than the benches and a low, wide, cold brazier standing on the stone floor, the place was empty. Carina hoped it would remain so for a few hours at least, or that anyone who came in would leave her to worship in her own way. She stretched out on a narrow bench, lay her head in the crook of her arm, and was instantly asleep.