by Dan Glover
"We've got to tell Nate. Perhaps he can take us aboard the Nautilus to sail to Lily's rescue. I'm sure he'll help us, sweet Natalia. Let's call him right away."
"The phone isn't working, my darling Lauren. I think the cell tower is down again. Let's try to raise him on the short wave."
After three hundred years the old technology was slowly deteriorating and though Nate and the scientists continued to repair and update the cellular equipment, it was becoming less dependable by the year. Even the short wave radios were aging. Unless a new breakthrough in communications occurred soon, the days of talking long distance would soon end.
The electric grids went down a hundred years ago. Instead of relying on one central source of electricity, it became more feasible to power their homes with individual generators that ran off natural gas. Those too had begun to fail, however, and often times they were without the conveniences afforded by a constant source of electricity.
The radio crackled and hissed and either no one was around the receiver in Toulon or else something was wrong. Lauren thought how isolated they'd all become, not like the days when everyone lived close to Orchardton Hall.
They were all so spread out now. She supposed it was inevitable but she also missed the simpler days when the castle was full of the sounds of children and laughter and even tears. Now it was so silent she sometimes wondered why they didn’t live in the ossuary deep in the belly of Orchardton Hall along with all the other dead things.
At the same time, though, Lauren felt tied to the old castle like a tether holding a balloon from drifting off into the ether. If she ever cut herself loose she wondered if she might float away and never see her loved ones again.
Lately, even the Lake had lost its pull for her. Formerly they made the sojourn to its dark and chilly depths every seven years but she couldn’t remember the last time she tasted its waters. Perhaps that was her problem... the Lake was calling and she was not listening.
She only knew one thing for certain: she missed Lily.
Chapter 24—Infatuation
Ena woke out of an inebriated dream.
Covered in sweat despite a cool breeze flapping through the open window of her bedroom she didn’t remember lying down nor did she recall the details of the dream but she knew something was terribly wrong.
As she grew older her sense of prescience increased to the point where all her movements were guided by what she already knew would happen. She lived not in the present moment but in the future to come, carefully winnowing the way through the tumult of time.
Grandmother Lily was in trouble.
Though they never made it to old New York City she heard the tales of Karen's captivity at the hands of a mad man who posed as a scientist. If not for that insane imposter of medicine, however, they might never have been found after becoming marooned on an island in the middle of the Atlantic.
Chester came to their rescue.
When the big cat first appeared, she thought they were all meals for him. Despite his enormity Amanda walked right up to him as if offering herself up as a sacrifice that the rest of them might flee.
"Why is Chester so big, Grandmother Lily? I had no idea tigers grew to such a size."
"He was an experiment, sweet Ena. The man who took our darling Karen prisoner fed him something which changed his body into what you see now. Chester was even bigger when he first found us."
"Why would anyone do that to an animal?"
"Micah was insane, darling Ena. We were lucky to escape his lair. If not for his infatuation with our precious Karen we might have all become his next experiments."
Ena remembered the name from her dream. The dragons were but a figment of an evil imagination from a mind named Micah. She heard the name as a whispered hiss high overhead as the sun was blotted out and the air became difficult to breathe.
Her lungs became infested with living writhing crystals of sand intent upon ingraining themselves into her body, demanding she do their bidding. When she opened her mouth to scream the swarm entered her airway choking her and making her their own.
Only it was not her... it was Grandmother Lily they sought to incorporate into their swarm. They wanted something from her: answers as to her ability to block their dominance over every other form of life they came into contact with.
Micah's machines had Grandmother Lily in their grasp. They were taking her back to old America. That's what the dream was telling her. She felt an urgency that was both rare and exciting... finally something was happening.
Bolting from her bedroom Ena headed to the kitchen, the center of all activity in the mansion. Not so long ago, laughing children would have been huddled around the table waiting to be fed. Now, they were all grown and off living their own lives. Even her youngest, Niall, had fled to Toulon Castle.
Expecting the kitchen to be deserted she was so happy to see Karen sitting at the center island that she rushed up and hugged her, still trembling from the remnants of the dream.
"What's wrong, my darling Ena? You seem so cold, and you're shaking."
"They have Grandmother Lily."
"Who has Lily? What are you talking about?"
"Micah's machines came to Orchardton Hall like a cloud. They carried Grandmother Lily off to old America."
"Who told you this, sweet Ena? Have you been south to Orchardton Hall?"
"No one told me. I dreamed it."
"We all have dreams, though. It's nothing to worry about. If it will put your mind to rest let's call Orchardton Hall."
"There is no need for that, sweet Karen. We need to mount a rescue as soon as possible. Are any of Pete's jets capable of flying across the Atlantic?"
"Oh, sweetie, I have no idea. Even if that were possible there may be nowhere to land. Plus there is the need to refuel for the trip back."
"We need to talk to Pete right away... and Ronald too. We'll need a copilot. We'll also require respirators. Weapons will do us no good. I know Grandfather Nate will want to go along. You should come along too, sweet Karen."
"But darling Ena... this is all nonsense. We can't fly to old America. I doubt any of Pete's jets have the ability to fly so far without refueling. What will we do when we reach old New York City? What if Lily isn’t even there? We really need to think this through first."
"I understand if you're afraid to go, darling Karen. I don’t blame you. I'm scared too. But we have to rescue Lily. We cannot let Micah have her. He'll stop at nothing to learn her secrets. And once that happens, none of us are safe."
She understood Karen's hesitancy. If someone came to her with a story like this, she'd refuse to believe them too. Ena wasn’t sure how to convince Karen of her sincerity other than to leave her to the doubts raging in her mind.
She knew Karen held Lily as a hostage well before the Great Dying. They had kidnapped her and held her as a prisoner for seven years. Lily had never spoken of it but when Karen drank too much wine she often lamented those years. She counted not letting Lily go as one of the great mistakes of her life. Though she loved Karen, the good doctor's reticence at traveling to Lily's aid irritated Ena to no end.
Her Grandmother Lily had been maligned long enough. The People told sordid tales of how she abandoned Grandfather Nate for another man yet Ena knew instinctively that she was following a design set in place hundreds of years ago. Grandmother Lily was simply pursuing her vision of the future. The People did not seem to understand that without Lady Lily, none of them would exist in the first place.
"She saved our lives that day, sweet Ena. Lady Lauren would have sent us to our death if Lady Lily had not intervened."
Karen seemed lost in a reverie of the past but Ena needed her to think about the future. If they lost Lily, the chances for all of their survivals would diminish drastically.
"Then why will you not help me to save my Grandmother Lily now, darling Karen?"
"I'll do whatever I can, my precious Ena, but as far as I know, Lady Lily has gone back to Kāne. She made her choice. No
w we have to honor it."
Though Ena wanted to scream, she walked away in silence. She needed someone to help her but they were all gone now. She watched as her children grew up and had children of their own.
Now they were off living lives of their own. Sometimes, she dreamed of having more babies but Alpin said he wanted time alone. She often thought back to that day on the beach in old France when he impregnated her and then promptly disappeared back into the ocean. It had become a template for their life.
She knew she couldn't ask him to come along on her mission to save Lady Lily. He would only laugh at her and not take her seriously, just like Karen. Ena's children used to believe in her judgment and in her moral righteousness but that was years ago and they were the exception rather than the rule.
Ena knew that Pete most of his time in the hanger behind the mansion they all called home restoring old planes, readying them for flights to various corners of the world. If Karen will not listen to her, perhaps he would.
She wasn’t going to count on it, however.
Once Ena had heard Nate talking with Pete about the problem of deteriorating electric grids and rusting cell phone towers and though she attempted to interject some ideas into the conversation, they seemed to look at her as a person not well-versed in the sciences.
She wasn't. But what they failed to fathom was her prescience. In her mind's eye she saw the workings of machines that would generate a stream of electricity by using sea water as an energy source and instant communication devices that relied on entangled particles thousands of miles apart.
When she attempted to explain that to Pete, he listened politely but she could sense he had no intention of using any of her ideas. Grandfather Nate was the same way. They seemed stuck in their own recycling loop unable to break out of the gumption trap corner they painted themselves into so she left them alone.
She saw she would have to take matters into her own hands.
Chapter 25—Guilt
She owed Lady Lily her life.
Though she had no right to ask for succor, it was granted anyhow. She was dying; that much was certain. She knew she had to get to Lily and what's more, convince her to save the lives of the very people who held her captive for seven long years.
Karen often reminisced about the Ladies over a campfire and many bottles of wine they imported from Grandfather Nate's vineyards in the south of old France. She told the story of that day many times, how she realized a plague had been loosened on the world and how Lily was the only salvation.
She was sick. She knew Lake Syndrome progressed rapidly enough that she'd be dead within hours. The cities were in flames and all the highways clogged with abandoned vehicles attempting in vain to escape.
Karen was the only one who knew where to go. She had hopes that Marilyn would be safe back at CDC headquarters but the woman drove to Scotland instead. When she appeared, Karen was both petrified with fear for her and overcome with an intense desire to take her to the nearest abode and make mad and furious love with Marilyn one final time before they both succumbed to the parasites boiling in their bloodstreams.
Instead, they drove to Orchardton Hall... Marilyn grew incensed when Karen demanded they stop for the two boys they nearly ran over while fireballing through the village of Kurgan. Karen didn’t really understand why she had the urge to help the boys—they were like all the other little bastards dying in the streets—but she sensed if just the two of them arrived at Orchardton Hall, they'd be turned away.
Thinking back, however, she couldn’t quite remember if they really had picked up two boys or if one had mysteriously appeared when they pulled up in front of Orchardton Hall. It was almost like she had competing memories of the same event and though it didn’t make sense they were both correct.
She was quite sure about the girls, however.
Yes, the two girls were close to death too. It would have been easy to leave them lying in the street but she made Marilyn turn around to pick them up anyway. Karen didn’t know if the whole of the human race was going extinct, but she had a sinking feeling that within a week, there would be no other people alive in the world.
It was her fault.
She should have taken more precautions with Lily. She alone knew the horrible consequences of Lake Syndrome being loosed on the world yet she willingly took that risk in order to gain the secret of immortality.
Karen had visions of winning accolades and renown and perhaps going back to her parents to show them how wrong they were about the ugly little girl they had given birth to... to prove to them both that she really was someone. It was such a simple thing to ask... yet the answer would change not only her but the world... all she needed to know was Lily's secret.
Now, the secret was hers, but at what a cost? Marilyn was long dead as were six billion other people who had just as much a right at life as she did. The world changed overnight from a crowded mean place to a land of gentleness and quiet.
She had no way of dealing with such a world. Men had always ruled her every move... first, her father, and later Hector Ramirez. Though she hated being treated as a secondary citizen, she became used to playing the part.
Suddenly, she found herself flung into a world where she was important. The guilt she carried over not doing more to stop the Great Dying became submerged beneath the tranquility of pride. She was finally someone to be reckoned with, not simply a woman for men to placate.
She wanted it to happen. In the early days she could have returned to CDC headquarters to take charge. She had the authority Marilyn lacked. Instead, she chose to keep following Lily.
There was no one worth saving anyway. She had no family, no real friends. The years she spent honing her skill as a medical doctor were wasted. She was no more a doctor than a dog. She had no skills in dealing with people. She took the job at CDC headquarters knowing her position would shield her from the drudgery of being a real doctor, a person charged with healing the sick and the maimed.
She always hated weakness.
When she met Pete, she told herself the man was not her type. He was a confirmed bachelor... at least before Micah injected his bloodstream full of his nanobots and changed him into a metallic monster.
He reminded her too much of Hector Ramirez, her old boss and part time lover from the days before the Great Dying. There were things she did back then that still caused the grip of guilt to surround her so she tried not to think about what had happened and what she told herself she'd been forced into doing.
Hector had been a miserable human being but he didn’t deserve the fate that had befallen him. She rationalized that it was his fault somehow... that she was just reacting the only way she knew how to do in order to salvage her dream of discovering the secret that Lady Lily held in her bones.
She made a decision. She was tired of being taken for granted, for playing second fiddle to a man who wasn’t anywhere close to her level of intellect. In a perfect world, she would have been his boss. Her name would have appeared on the scientific papers they authored together and not his alone.
This new world they were creating from the wreckage of the old wasn’t perfect but it was better, and they had a chance to improve it each day. Men no longer ruled... wars were no longer fought. The peace that enveloped the land would last millions of years but only if the Ladies took care to maintain their strength in the face of the men who would seek to usurp them.
Micah worried her.
She didn’t understand why he let her go but she suspected he desired someone else... the person who held the secret to immortality... the same person she had kept prisoner for seven years and who she had followed half way around the world attempting to recapture.
Lily was in danger. When Ena came to her telling her of an outlandish dream, it didn’t surprise her as much as it should have. Karen had been having the same dream. She told herself it was a kind of collective hypnosis... that Ena had somehow instilled in her subconscious the notion of dragons carrying Lily off.
But that was not what Ena had said... she told her that Micah's machines had come for Lily, not dragons. Why did she get the impression that dragons had carried the Lady off?
Something strange was happening to her. She decided to speak to Pete right away and perhaps make a trip to Toulon to see Nate.
Chapter 26—Talking to Angels
She didn’t remember arriving.
She awoke inside a building lying upon a soft mattress. Testing her limbs she discovered she was free to move and no longer bound up in cob webs. She sensed she'd been here before though it took her a few moments to decipher exactly where she was.
The window was covered in a sort of steel gauze and though there was no visible light the walls glowed of their own accord as if impregnated with luminosity. Shaking the muddle of sleep from her mind, Lily realized she'd been hearing a hissing sound for some time now.
"Hello?"
Her voice echoed off the ceiling reminding her of the years of captivity she endured at the Centers for Disease Control in old England so many years ago. Rising from the bed walked across the room to test the door.
To her surprise it was open.
Stepping into the hallway she stopped short. She was rarely afraid of anything but a sort of loathsome terror crept up her back to claw at the back of her brain. The walls seethed with movement barely discernable if not for the multitude of tiny particles involved. A mist hung low over the floor gray and monotonous like the sea at low tide just before dawn.
The movement of the walls seemed to will her on, like an arrow urging her to proceed down the hallway to a brightly lighted room at the opposite end with double doors thrown open wide reminiscent of the maw of Chester on that first encounter with the big cat. Somehow she doubted there was any benevolence awaiting her in that room yet she entered anyhow.