Daughters of Forgotten Light
Page 26
“You couldn’t have waited a little bit longer?” Lena playfully punched Ava in the arm. “Or at least saved one these tanks for us?”
Taylor and the other dwellers trickled out of the airship.
Ava shrugged. “There has to be other transport around here. It was her idea anyway.” She pointed to Dolfuse.
“Did you find the girl I told you about?” Dolfuse shivered against the wind.
Lena still couldn’t figure the senator out. Was she with them or against them, temporarily or for good? Dolfuse probably didn’t even know herself. Well, she was necessary for the moment, and that was enough for Lena. “You never told me her name.”
“Rebecca,” Dolfuse said. “Red hair. Freckles.”
Lena gestured for a shippee to come to her. “You know a Rebecca? Ginger?”
“I’ve seen her a few times,” the shippee said.
“She still alive?”
The shippee nodded.
“Go get her for me.”
“Thank you.” Dolfuse said it to Lena, but her eyes were back on Rory.
Damn it, woman. Let it go.
Something beeped inside Dolfuse’s pocket. She swallowed and tried to look casual while she dug out her phone and read whatever popped on her screen.
Lena watched her with squinted eyes.
What a dumb fucking move, Horror. She should have taken away all the senator’s chances of communication. Dolfuse could inform the government about the Daughters’ little invasion with a quick text, and have them all blown to hell before they knew what happened. “Give me that.”
“It’s just my phone. A message from my husband. He’s coming back from the war on a temporary visit.”
She’s fucking lying. Lena grinned and held out a hand. “Then let me share in your joy.”
“Why don’t you trust me?”
“You’re a politician,” Ava said. “Give her your phone.”
Glancing between the two of them, and seeing she had no choice, Dolfuse slapped the phone into Lena’s hand.
Lena hadn’t held a cell phone in years. Technology had sped along while she wasted away on Oubliette, and the thin glass of the device felt like holding a puff of air. “Special session of Congress,” Lena read. “President to address. Three hours. Mandatory.” She glared at the senator, raised her rang. “I can’t stand liars. Why shouldn’t I just blast you dead right now?”
“I’m not going.” Dolfuse shook her head as she shrank into a crouch. “I just didn’t want you to get upset. That’s why I lied.”
“’Cause the result now is so much different?” Lena dropped her arm and again looked over the phone message. She rubbed her chin. “You know, it would be very rude and detrimental to your career not to show up for a mandatory speech. From the president no less.”
Ava combed her hair behind her ears. “I’ve always wanted to meet the president.”
“I’ve always wanted to fire a rang shot up her ass.” Lena tossed the phone back to Dolfuse. “Well, aren’t you going to ask us to tag along?”
“This isn’t a plus-one kind of meeting. There’ll be Secret Service crawling all over the Hill. What’s the point?”
Lena placed her hands on the senator’s shoulders. “I want to give the continent a message. And I want to ensure that those who’ve been keeping us forgotten on Oubliette get what’s coming to them.” She stood and looked over all the sheilas looking to her for direction –Daughters, dwellers, shippees. “And it won’t be a plus one,” Lena said, with her back to Dolfuse. “I’m thinking more like plus a few hundred.”
Chapter 56
“My fellow North Americans, continental representatives. I’ve asked to address you about an important day in our nation’s history.”
Vice President Martin craved a nap like nobody’s business, and President Griffin’s droning voice only made the desire worse. But where Martin sat, just over Griffin’s left shoulder and directly in view of the cameras and countless continental viewers, made that impossible. Still, the president spoke profoundly. It was an important day.
“Today is that day,” the president continued. “I’ve executed my duty as your commander-in-chief to end a coup concocted by the shipping port’s warden, and seen fit to end the shipping program altogether.” Griffin cleared her throat and sipped water from a glass. The wrinkles in her neck stretched.
Martin turned her eyes to the den of snakes watching from the congressional chamber. Some of them had their eyes closed. The more inventive ones held a finger and lowered their heads to make it look like they were reading or in deep thought. Lucky bastards.
“Evidence has also arisen that Oubliette has become a dangerous place. Given no other option, I signed an order to use appropriate force to clear the city of its refuse. Now Oubliette is ready for upstanding citizens to fill its streets, to thrive and prosper. With the support of your elected officials,” Griffin smiled and waved a demonstrating hand across Congress, “we have put together a plan to begin a lottery for free passage to Oubliette.”
Good job, Griff, Martin thought. The president was following her script to the letter.
Griffin had asked her why they shouldn’t keep it secret. “Won’t it be obvious all the people selected are… us?”
“By that time, it won’t matter what they think,” Martin had said.
Griffin pounded the podium for her next remark, waking a few of the sleeping congressionals from their naps. “But we will continue to fight those who would see us dead. We will never quit…”
…until the ice has passed us over, Martin followed along in her head.
Movement stirred on the floor. Not the head bobbing of a senator or the calm walk of a congressional page. A Secret Service woman jogged over to one of her fellow agents. They both tilted their heads like curious dogs, fingers at their earpieces. Widening their eyes as obvious concern washed across their faces, they turned and ran for the podium. Other agents joined them from dark corridors at the sides of the chamber. The president shut her mouth, taking a few steps back.
The doors at the back of the room flew open. Motorcycles riding on wheels of blazing blue light flew into the chamber, carrying women with roaring mouths and flapping hair. The carpet caught fire under the wheels, in blazing skidmarks.
No, it couldn’t be. Martin dropped onto her hands and knees, crawling for cover. They were all killed. They had no way of getting here.
Balls of light and lasers flew throughout the room, tearing into the president and the Secret Service agents who rushed toward her. Martin kept crawling, focusing on the carpet at the edge of her fingers and not the screams and buzzing hums and laser fire filling the chamber.
“Get back to your seats, please,” someone yelled, then laughed like mad.
Martin wanted to throw up, but found enough resolve until she came to two pairs of feet, one wearing dirty tennis shoes, and the other slick, black boots.
“That’s her.” Dolfuse, the crazy bitch. She pointed at Martin’s face.
The biker psycho next to her raised a laser rifle that fired a red blast. It was the last thing Martin saw.
Chapter 57
Lena brushed away the brain matter that had slapped against her jacket. She had really wanted to be the one who put the president down, but she figured a vice president was good enough.
She nodded at Dolfuse. “Get out of here and take care of Rory for me. Tell Taylor I said Grindy would have been cool with it.”
Dolfuse caught her breath, joy trying to bubble up.
“But I’ll be back to claim her after,” Lena said. “Don’t think I won’t.”
Dolfuse ran along the side wall, away from where the Daughters of Forgotten Light were breaking a senator’s neck or where Pao dispersed her berserker rang shots into a fleeing group of congresspeople. Shippees poured in and shot their rifles at anyone not wearing black jackets or white uniforms.
It was glorious.
Lena pointed to two camera operators attempting to crawl away. �
��Get back on those cameras if you want to live.”
They jumped to their feet and ran.
Lena sighed and yelled to Hurley Girly and Sarah. “Let them go. You two think you can work a camera?”
“Yep,” they said in unison.
Lena stepped over the dead as she made her way to the podium. The president’s body lay sprawled atop it, so Lena tossed the corpse out of the way. The noise inside the chamber faded to whispers and the creaking of old wood. Sarah and Hurley Girly trained the cameras on Lena at the podium.
“My name is Lena Horowitz,” she said into the microphone. “Some people call me Horror. What you’ve just seen from the comfort of your couches might indicate that’s a fair nickname. But I’m standing here, telling you that I’m a product of this government’s laws and hypocritical beliefs. I’ve lived on Oubliette for almost a decade, and I used to think I wanted to come back home. Back to Earth. I used to think I wanted a normal life.” Lena swallowed. The pitcher of water to her side invited a drink, but she refused to touch anything meant for the president. “But I’ve changed my mind.”
Sarah leaned out from behind the camera. Dipity sat on her cyclone with a confused look. The shippees glanced at each other.
“We’ve taken the shipping port,” Lena said. “We have plenty of firepower and people to use it. We’re not interested in taking over the continent or any of that bullshit. From what I gather, there won’t be a continent after the ice gets past your enviroshields anyway. So, what’s this all about?”
She leaned over the podium. “I’m inviting any man or woman under eighteen years of age to come along with us back to Oubliette. You have three days. We’re shipping the manna equipment back to Oubliette and will be just fine for the foreseeable future. When we leave, we’ll be destroying the shipping port, just so none of you get the bright idea to come after us.
“Now, to the mothers and fathers out there, those who thought they could give up their sons and daughters to fight in a losing war, to be sent away to Oubliette to be forgotten.” She stared into the black pit of the camera lens, seeing her own mother behind the glass. “When the cold freezes your bones and steals your last breath, when you resort to eating each other just to stay alive one more day, when the darkness swallows all of you – we’ll be there.” She pointed up. “We’ll be able to come back when the ice thaws. We’ll be the ones left to write the future and remember the past, but you, for what you did, to the children you didn’t want, you will only be one thing: forgotten.”
Acknowledgments
This book is my soul baby. That might sound a little strange, so let me clarify. I think in every author’s career, they write that book. There may, hopefully, be more of those books, but as of writing this, Daughters of Forgotten Light is that book for me. I have carried a torch for this thing in your hands for longer than some might have thought was healthy. I’m so thankful to Angry Robot for publishing this grindhousey slab of sci-fi pulp. I couldn’t think of a better place for it to be.
Thanks to Michael Underwood, who remains a big supporter of my work. He not only helped acquire DOFL, but he also introduced me to the comic, Bitch Planet, which is one of the best comparable pieces of media for it.
Marc Gascoigne, as always, has been wonderful to work with. He runs a brilliant publishing company, and his art direction is spot on. He picked the fabulously talented John Coulthart to create the cover, and I couldn’t be more thrilled with the final product.
Penny Reeve is a master of publicity and always a pleasure to speak with. Plus, she deserves major points for understanding how impatient I am. Phil Jourdan is the best editor a writer could hope for. He has yet to give me a note I disagree with, and he knows just what will make a good book great.
To marvelous mustachioed robot, Nick Tyler, I give my sincerest thanks for working the proofs and being so fantastic in online promotion. If he’s able to create a Transformers photo for DOFL, I’ll be most impressed.
I want to thank my agent, Paul Stevens, from the bottom of my heart. He took a chance and signed me as his first client after reading Daughters of Forgotten Light. It took some time, Paul, but we did it!
Special thanks goes to Rena Rossner. DOFL blossomed after a short Twitter conversation with her. You never know where your ideas will come from. Laura Adams has been a huge fan of this book since reading the first draft a few years ago. She is officially a member of DOFL, and dubbed “Triple L”. Michael Mammay was also an awesome beta reader, even though I started sending the manuscript out to agents before I even read his notes.
Last, but definitely not least, I want to thank you. Readers like you are why I write. What did you think of that ending!? Please contact me at my various internet locations and tell me what you thought. I love interacting with anyone who enjoys my wild imagination. Now, let’s hop onto a cyclone and ride off into the starlight, along that wide open street of glass.
About the Author
Sean Grigsby is a professional firefighter in central Arkansas, where he writes about lasers, aliens, and guitar battles with the Devil when he’s not fighting dragons.
seangrigsby.com • twitter.com/seangrigsby
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Unforgettable
An Angry Robot paperback original 2018
Copyright © Sean Grigsby 2018
Sean Grigsby asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
UK ISBN 978 0 85766 795 3
US ISBN 978 0 85766 795 3
EBook ISBN 978 0 85766 796 0
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Set by Argh! Nottingham.
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ISBN: 978-0-85766-796-0