by Ramsay, Lex
“I’m already on it, Relic, did you think you’d have to convince me? You should know me better than that. I’ll need you to feed me anything else you can pick up on the S.R.’s plan; but don’t use any more intermediaries, Relic, this thing is too big to jeopardize by using unknowns. I’ll recalibrate my link and contact you with the new encryption code later.”
Without waiting for an answer, Patrick turned and jogged back the way he’d come.
CHAPTER 9
Olivia whisked up the steps on her way up to her room. She had just spent the last two hours listening to a bunch of old ladies prattle on about next to nothing. It had been their turn to host the Angels of Mercy meeting, and by the time it was over, Olivia felt like running from the room, tearing her hair out and screaming.
The Angels of Mercy was basically a feel-good do-nothing group started to give the good white women on the protectorates something to do other than bother the slaves and harangue their husbands. Lord knows there wasn’t much else that required their attention. They didn’t have to do anything productive, they had no jobs, and the S.P.s cooked the food, reared their children and kept the Protectorate Houses running.
Ostensibly, according to its mission statement, the purpose of the Angels of Mercy was to “Comfort those less fortunate, alleviate suffering, and exemplify the purity of the ladies of the F.F.C.” Of course, what that actually came down to was doing little projects like clothing drives for the S.F.s once every couple of years for little “extras” that the protectorates didn’t need to, or feel inclined to, provide—and organizing Jubilee Day activities once a year.
Their latest project was to distribute first aid kits to the S.F. field houses, the garment workers’ factory floors and the Protectorate Compounds so that everyday injuries and mishaps could be quickly addressed. This project actually had the backing of the Confederacy home office, since it had the dual effect of “dispensing compassionate healing” while at the same time saving the protectorates money by reducing sick time and the need for clinic visits.
Anyway, after spending two hours listening to the half-wits debate everything from where the kits should be located, to what they should contain, to how to make them useable by the slaves, Olivia felt like punching someone. Her solution was to order the kits from a first aid company, locate them where the slaves worked, train a few select slaves to use them, and be done with it. But such a forthright suggestion didn’t leave the requisite room for gossip and discord, so reverting to their usual meandering ways, the meeting lasted about twice as long as it had to.
In the end, after much hand wringing and further needless debate, the committee ended up following Olivia’s suggestion. As treasurer, the committee authorized Olivia to order the first aid kits from the safety equipment company in the U.S. she had located, and to pay for the order from the committee’s account.
In other words, Olivia thought, the entire meeting could have taken ten minutes rather than two hours. Of course, everybody including Olivia knew that the true purpose of the committee was to provide the women with an excuse to leave their protectorates for the rare excursion, see old friends, trade gossip and tall tales and complain. Complaints about worthless S.P.s, unruly children, no-good husbands and useless lives dominated the buzz of conversation that had surrounded Olivia all afternoon.
And to think, Olivia mused, left to the strictures of the F.F.C., she would have been reduced to doing the same.
Just as Olivia felt a renewed surge of pique at the futility of it all, who should she run into, but Sulla.
“Sulla, I’ll be wearing my emerald evening gown tonight, see that it’s freshly pressed and put in my dressing room.” She snapped, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she passed.
“Of course, Miss Olivia, I’ll send your maid right up.” Sulla replied, not about to be ordered about by the likes of her.
Olivia stopped on the last step and whirled on Sulla. “I said, I want YOU to take care of it Sulla, you do understand English, don’t you? But then again, I guess it’s not your verbal skills that keep you around here, is it?” Olivia lowered her voice to a menacing whisper.
“Well Miss Olivia, I wouldn’t know nothin’ ’bout that, but I won’t be able to help you this evening,” Sulla lowered her eyelids then looked seductively through her lashes at Olivia. “Your father will be needing me tonight …” She paused to let the innuendo wash over Olivia. “So I’ll just send up your maid to see to you.”
Sulla didn’t wait for a retort but continued down the stairs without a backward glance, certain as she was that Olivia was damn near apoplectic with rage.
They’d been playing these silly games too long, Sulla thought, and where had it gotten either one? Sulla never really had to get Protector Askew to intercede with Olivia on her behalf. She knew Olivia never wanted to push it that far, because she was uncertain of the outcome and just couldn’t abide it if her father chose sides against her—and Sulla knew it.
But even aside from their usual tussles, it seemed to Sulla like Olivia had been acting strange the last few days. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but Olivia had been even shorter tempered than usual, acting distracted and flustered at the same time. Sulla knew she’d been riling the S.P.s more than usual—well, the male S.P.s anyway.
Seems Olivia had hemmed up young Joshua in the stables yesterday and nearly demanded to be serviced right there in the back of the stables. Sulla pictured the scene and almost laughed out loud. Joshua, the poor thing, had been scared near to death, but had been saved when Mister Bryce had shown up for his afternoon ride.
Only time Olivia was that brazen was when she was either bored or worried—usually the latter since boredom was an almost constant state of affairs on the Protectorate and Olivia had apparently devised numerous antidotes for that condition.
Then last night, Sulla overheard Olivia inside the control room whispering furiously to someone. Olivia had no business being in there—in fact, given that Sulla was eavesdropping outside the door, neither one of them had any business being there, but Sulla was smart enough to bide her time and find out what she could before deciding where her best interests lay.
All she’d been able to make out from the one side of the whispered conversation she could hear was Olivia saying somethin’ like “grass” or “gas” and “You can’t be serious … when …how did you find out?”
At that point, Olivia’s discretion overtook her outrage and she lowered her voice so that Sulla couldn’t hear another thing. Fearing discovery, Sulla had quickly slipped back downstairs, and had been trying to figure out ever since who Olivia was talking to and what about.
• • •
Olivia closed and locked the door to her room, exasperated at herself for letting Sulla get to her. Right now she had far more important things on her mind. Years ago when she’d first started working with the R.A., Olivia had obtained a listening device from her contact and planted it in the control room.
Two days ago, when downloading the recording into her electronic tablet for encrypted transmission over the satellite link, she’d listened to an intercepted vid-phone conversation between her father and an unknown woman.
The woman had told her father that he was to increase production over the next two months to make up for the missed December shipment. That was odd enough, considering it was only September, but then she’d gone on to say that the automation equipment would be arriving within a month, and should be warehoused on the Protectorate until further word on the installation schedule.
If they were planning automation of the field work, that could only mean one thing—the rumors Olivia had heard from her former classmate working in Atlanta were true—the Confederacy had decided to get rid of the slaves.
Back when Olivia was in graduate school in Lausanne, Switzerland, she’d made friendships that at the time had seemed improbable, but in hindsight were quite predictable. Without the burdens of the archaic systems of the S.R., many F.F.C. took on the attrib
utes of temporary expatriates, being outside the country and outside the influence of the system that had defined their existence. Being able for the first time to view their homeland with some degree of objectivity, and to share diverse philosophies and perspectives was for most of them a once in a lifetime experience.
A group of F.F.C. students had formed, Olivia included, who had seriously considered never returning to the S.R. after having all their assumptions about their inherent superiority and unquestioned right to dominate turned upside down. Eventually, with few exceptions, they had decided to work from within the system to destroy, or at least significantly alter it; and from that group Olivia had come to know Emmaline Moultry.
Emmaline was the daughter of a Kentucky senator who had spent many years in Atlanta while her father served in the Confederacy. Having lived in both the urban center and the Protectorate, Emmaline had a perspective on the overall workings of the S.R. that Olivia lacked; but both women had dedicated their lives to demolishing the system of race and class-casting they saw as victimizing the vast majority of the people in the S.R.
Emmaline had proven something of a disappointment to her parents—too bright when it served an F.F.C. woman better to at least pretend to be stupid, too independent when pliancy was most valued; and too competitive to be the delicate flower of the South she was meant to be—Emmaline was a challenge. Well, Olivia fondly remembered, Emmaline may not have been her parents’ idea of a perfect daughter, and she certainly wasn’t easily manageable, but she was a hell of a politician. In that way she had learned the best lessons her father could teach her.
On her return from graduate school in which she’d studied political science, of course, Emmaline had browbeat her father into giving her a post in his office. She used that position as a springboard to become Legislative Assistant to Senator Moultry; then when her father finally saw the advantage in having such a political animal for a daughter, he convinced one of his colleagues to take her on as an aide. That colleague just happened to be the Chair of the Domestic Products—one of the most powerful committees in the Confederacy. And Emmaline’s own skill and perseverance had ultimately earned her the post of Assistant Director.
It was from Emmaline that she had first heard of the rumor about getting rid of the slaves weeks ago, and it was to Emmaline that Olivia turned last night in her clandestine foray into the control room, for confirmation. Olivia had long ago learned to pick the lock in the control room, for emergency purposes only, since she would have no excuse for being caught there. Instead, Olivia had her own electronic tablet, complete with a satellite uplink directed to one of the R.A.’s satellites co-opted from their true owners from time to time without their knowledge. She had a cell phone with a scrambler, too, which she used sparingly as well.
The S.R. had grown complacent with many of its tech communications systems, believing that as long as the slaves were tech-deprived they were in the clear. After all, they must have reasoned, the S.R. is no world power, it’s as neutral as Switzerland politically, and has no military to speak of, so who would bother to infiltrate their systems?
Olivia’s contact had explained to her once how they used microwave relay stations near the borders to bounce signals around before beaming them up to various satellites in an attempt to confuse the centralized communications center in Springfield, Missouri into believing their transmissions were international signals picked up because of their proximity to S.R. space. Apparently this subterfuge had worked, he had said, since they’d never known any R.A. communication to be intercepted by the S.R.
Olivia had called Emmaline after replaying the intercepted vid-phone transmission, and Emmaline had told her about a memo that proved the rumors true. Unfortunately, Emmaline couldn’t risk transmitting the memo directly to Olivia, since if the transmission were detected, it would lead them straight to Olivia. Instead, Emmaline suggested, she would transmit the memo to the Protectorate’s control room computer via encrypted email, which Olivia could then access and erase.
Last night Olivia had done just that, and read a memo that even now, she couldn’t believe. The memo read:
EYES ONLY
SECURITY CLEARANCE LEVEL 10 AND ABOVE
AUTHORIZED RECIPIENTS ONLY
TO: DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
FROM: CHAIR, DOMESTIC PRODUCTS COMMITTEE
DATE: SEPTEMBER 3, 119
RE: PROJECT EXODUS
YOU ARE DIRECTED TO DISTRIBUTE BY 10/15/119 TO EACH REGIONAL HUB 3 – 10 OZ. VIALS OF S-18 TO BE RECEIVED BY DEPT OF AGRICULTURAL TESTING. IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULED FOR12/18/119. FURTHER ORDERS TO FOLLOW.
Olivia had read it three times over before she understood its implications. There were feeder lines that came from each state and were routed to one of the four regional hubs. She wasn’t sure what S-18 was, but figured it had to be some sort of chemical, and however it was supposed to be used, it was planned for “implementation” on December 18th. Whatever the plan, was, Olivia thought, it must entail transporting the chemical from the hubs over the feeder lines to the states. That’s why they would need 3 vials each—12 states, 4 hubs, each hub serviced 3 states apiece.
After reading the memo, erasing the email and wiping the hard drive, Olivia called Emmaline on her cell phone. She couldn’t believe what she learned. S-18 was some sort of gas, an airborne toxin that attacked the central nervous system and caused unconsciousness, then death, within seconds of inhalation.
Olivia had immediately tried to get her R.A. contact on the cell phone, but just got dead air. The number no longer worked. Olivia knew that meant trouble.
CHAPTER 10
Protector Askew strode across the dining room, pulled the chair out for Eugenia with a courtly flourish, and assumed his place at the head of the table. Tall, with a muscular build uncommon in men his age, Protector Askew was at the zenith of his condition and the prime of his life– that most unfair double standard of all—the beautiful middle-aged man.
Not that the term “middle-aged” was any that he would voluntarily accept, no, Protector Askew thought of himself as “mature” and “seasoned,” but not “middle-aged.” His wavy auburn hair was as darkly glistening as it had been in his twenties, but now with just a wisp of grey at the temples, and his waistline just as tight.
In fact, considering the lithe young man he had been, his more manly build, with broad shoulders and well-muscled arms, was much more befitting, he thought, to his station in life. The strong bones of his brow and cheekbones were a nice counterpoint to his prominent jaw and slightly hawkish nose. His square hairline and broad forehead was punctuated by thick, dark brows that slashed across his masculine features; and his mouth was almost pretty, but was saved from that fate by a rakish mustache hugging his upper lip.
He looked out across the table at his wife, Eugenia, and had to remind himself of the advantages that marriage to George Newsome’s only daughter had yielded him. True, he hadn’t always viewed the match with such equanimity. He remembers when, as a young man, he discovered the dire financial straights his family were in, and that in order to salvage his family’s protectorate he would need a “strategic match” as his father euphemistically called it.
More like he was being auctioned off like a prized stallion—and this was his due? Eugenia was a pale imitation of a woman, as far as he was concerned. She couldn’t even manage to give him a male heir. Of course, in truth, after Olivia had been born he didn’t give Eugenia much help in the baby making department. No surprise there. He could barely stand to be around her much less pretend to love her. She had fulfilled her function as far as he was concerned—rescued his family’s birthright and bolstered the family finances. He certainly hadn’t married her for her looks or charm, that was for sure.
But then again, he mused, why bring sand to the beach? Askew had made a game of seducing young S.P.s for as far back as he cared to remember. The slow seduction, the agonizingly languid dance of one step forward, then two steps back. These games he k
new well, and treasured every minute of the art of becoming the Sun in some lucky girl’s universe. Seeing that reflected adoration, and feeling the trembling ecstasy that was caused by his merest touch, the faintest promise of fulfillment was far sweeter than the actual conquest, he thought. Although the conquest, in its many forms, was another thing altogether.
There was the conquest of his latest paramour, for that is how he felt about his women; not that they were chattel bound to him by law, but that they were the most willing slaves of passion, eager to please and be cherished by the greatest man they would ever know.
Then there was the conquest of his wife, with her haughty manner and refined bearing; more concerned with the appearance of the thing than its reality. How he loved to humiliate Eugenia, how he gleefully anticipated the look on her face the morning after an evening spent huddled up in her dressing room—on the other side of her bedroom wall—making love to another woman within earshot. And he always made a point of giving her at least an earful of the passion he enjoyed.
Even now as Sulla sauntered into the dining room to check on the progress of the evening meal, Eugenia seemed to shrink into her chair in mortification. Ah, his lovely Sulla, she was a special treat.
Swirling his zinfandel in his glass, Askew reminisced about the seduction of sweet Sulla. In her he had found a woman worth far more than just the thrill of the conquest. He had enjoyed her sharp intelligence, mother wit and boundless enthusiasm for anything and everything he could think of—both in and out of bed.
You see, Askew thought to himself, he didn’t just love her for her beauty, but for her brains as well. Like many S.P.s, Sulla had acquired the speech patterns of the people in the Protectorate House she’d been bred to serve. Plus, he had tutored her a little on rudimentary philosophical concepts, management theory and basic economics once he realized what native intelligence she possessed. Anyway, it made her a much more interesting lover since he could actually talk to her as well; and it made her a far more efficient household manager—all to his benefit and delight.