by Joss Ware
It was also where many of the men seemed to gather. Loud, jovial voices arose from below, all of them masculine.
Simon remained in his normal condition since he was certain no one was around to see him. They were all below. His fingers trembled a bit and his body was damp with sweat from the effort of not only turning himself invisible, but also maintaining that state while moving, and for long periods of time. It was a little like holding his breath. He could still move about, but after a while, it became more difficult to maintain—especially while moving—and it took practice to hold it for an extended time.
Learning that he had such a skill had been an accident, a surreal experience, and Simon couldn’t help but wonder what the drawback was, the gotcha! part of being able to turn unseen. He still hadn’t figured it out yet, but he knew…there was no free lunch. Thus he didn’t take it for granted and tried to be prudent about its use.
Using my powers for good.
Rah, rah, and all that.
He found the door to what must be the basement and was able to open it silently. Fully aware of the Waxnickis’ tricky staircase, where one tripped an alarm rather than a soft chime if one didn’t know better, he turned himself invisible and descended while stepping on the edges of the steps.
Even if he did step on a stair that set off an alarm, they wouldn’t find him.
Confident in his obscurity, Simon moved rapidly down without incident and found himself in what must pass for a post-apocalyptic man’s sanctuary.
Although what they needed to escape from, Simon wasn’t sure. Any man who lived in Falling Creek had to subscribe to the multiple-wife theory and sex on cue.
As he moved silently, completely unnoticed into the room furnished with sofas and armchairs likely scavenged from the other houses, he counted heads. Maybe twenty or two dozen men aged mid-thirties to fifty or sixty sat around in various places. A lot of Corrigan-hued hair, but some others as well. Large screens were on the walls, and on low tables with chairs or other seats clustered around them.
Some of the men pored over papers on a large desk. They looked as though they were reviewing plans, or paperwork of some sort.
Others played cards. Ate. Watched movies or football.
Football?
Yeah, it looked as though they were watching old football games. Simon didn’t allow himself much thought about that, as anachronistic as it seemed. Somehow they had tapes or DVDs of football. It didn’t matter how or why.
There were others in a corner of the room that seemed to be working on some sort of electronic project. Wires, metal pieces, tools were scattered over the table.
Beyond them, a room with computers, most of them old desktops…
…and, oh yes.
Simon had been fucking dead-on.
These assholes had live cams not only in his and Sage’s room, but in a variety of other places.
Fucking coños.
As he sneaked up behind the two men who were obviously monitoring the computers, Simon saw that there were a variety of screens that flipped through feeds of not only his room, but other bedrooms, dining areas, as well as various locations in the settlement.
A garden abundant with vegetables where five women weeded and harvested. The children’s play area. A school-room? What appeared to be a nursery, complete with a slew of rocking chairs, cribs, eight nursing mothers, tables for changing diapers. The Community House, with a camera aimed at Lark Tannigan’s desk. And so on. Even what appeared to be the medical examination room.
Big Brother was definitely watching.
Sickened and yet disturbingly fascinated by the arrangement, Simon scrutinized not the screens but the men watching them. Why did they keep such close tabs? Was it simply for control, out of boredom, or for some other reason?
One thing was certain. He didn’t want to stay here any longer than they needed to.
* * *
July 30.
Almost two months after.
Finally have electricity again, so this is the first chance I’ve been able to write since my laptop battery was dead. They’ve repaired a bunch of generators and have them working, at least for awhile. There’s talk about sending a group to check out the Hoover Dam to see if it’s still generating power.
I’m living in a hotel room on the second level of MGM. Across the street is New York–New York, which is still fairly intact. We’ve all been assigned to task groups (on things like water, food, clothing, shelter, power, waste disposal and I guess what you’d call community) since about the first two weeks.
There’ve been no sounds of vehicles, aircraft, or anything like civilization since the day it happened. No Internet connection, no radio. Everything’s just…silent.
People I’ve only known for two months are people that I’ve bonded with and shared parts of myself like I never have before. Not a bit surprising, I’m sure.
I’m on the food task team, which is more involved than it sounds. Not only have we been searching as much through the city—every hotel room fridge, every kitchen, every store shelf, cooler, trunk, etc, that we can get into and salvage, but we’re also trying to find and save plants and seeds from stores, nurseries, even gardens. In case things have been destroyed.
Because who knows what’s left beyond our little circle of civilization.
All of the bodies have been taken to what’s left of an airport hangar outside the city. That’s another task group. Body disposal, I guess you’d call it.
There are thousands, too many to even imagine. At first, it looked like that scene in Gone With the Wind, where all the dead soldiers are lying there after the battle, as far as the eye can see. Except here, they’re not lined up so neatly. They’re just sprawled where they collapsed.
No one’s really sure if we’re the lucky ones, or if they were.
—from Adventures in Juliedom, the
blog of Julie Davis Beecher
* * *
CHAPTER 7
Sage didn’t know how she was going to tell Simon.
She paced the bedroom nervously, wondering where he was. People had been looking for him, but he seemed to have disappeared—at least, according to the frantic man who’d burst into the examining room while she was being given the results she didn’t want to hear.
That had been well over two hours ago, and the sun was high in the sky. Sage was expected to report for her daily duty—which today was working the rows of corn in the vegetable garden—in less than thirty minutes.
As she wandered the room, she alternated between annoyance with him for abandoning her, and hope that his disappearance meant he’d been able to accomplish something…like smuggling their other belongings into the compound. How he’d do that, she wasn’t certain, but Sage had the sense that if anyone could, Simon was the guy.
She looked nervously at herself in the mirror, smoothing her hair up and into a twist that would be practical for weeding chores. How was she going to tell him?
And how was he going to react?
Then, at last, the door to their room opened and he came in. Limping.
“What happened to you?” she asked, rushing to his side.
Simon held up a hand when she would have embraced him, and that simple gesture of distance made her even more nervous. “I hurt my leg,” he said, starting toward the bathroom.
“Badly?” she asked, watching him go.
“I just need to have it cleaned up. I’m fine.” He didn’t seem to be in pain, other than the limp. In fact, his eyes, dark and compelling, watched her steadily as he paused at the bathroom door. “They offered to patch me up, but I told them I’d rather have my wife do it.”
Sage’s breath stopped, and for a moment, she felt as if she wouldn’t be able to get her lungs to move again. He was so beautiful, it was difficult to look at him without feeling unsteady.
Her breath came out in a soft whoosh as her cheeks warmed. “Uh, all right,” she said when he jerked his head slightly, gesturing for her to follow him.
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br /> In the bathroom, he turned on the shower, then he closed the door partway and sat on the commode, making no move to take off his clothing except to roll up one of his pant legs. “Here,” he said. “Will you get a cloth and clean me up?”
She turned to go look for a washcloth, but he grabbed her arm and stopped her, turning her to look at him. As she half bent, their faces came close and for a moment, her thoughts scattered. He was right there, so near, his expression so intense…
“I have some things to tell you,” he said in a much lower voice.
Oh. The light dawned. He’d put the shower on to muffle their voices, brought her into the bathroom where they could have some privacy. Sage snapped out of the cloudiness and settled against the edge of the sink next to him.
“First tell me if you’re hurt,” she said, glancing down at his bare leg. A very nice bare leg in fact, muscular and tanned and covered with the right amount of dark hair. Her breathing threatened to stop again, and she firmly brought herself under control. Down to business. That’s why you’re here.
“I had to have an excuse for not being able to be found today,” he told her, still low-voiced, but not quite as close. “So when I was done, I pulled a heavy piece of old sheetrock on top of me until someone discovered me, and I pretended I’d been there for hours. I also raised a little hell that one of the children could have easily been injured, and much more severely.”
She nodded. Smart guy. “But you aren’t really hurt.”
“No. A little sore from the weight pressing into my thigh, but that’s all.”
That was why he wanted his “wife” to clean him up instead of the medical people at the Community House. “What did you find out?”
“There’s a camera in the bedroom, aimed at the bed and it can see most of the room. So unless we’re standing right beneath that picture of the dog, they can see us. I don’t think there’s audio, but I wasn’t able to confirm that, so assume there is. I didn’t see a camera feed in here,” he told her, gesturing around the small bathroom.
“But it’s better to be careful,” she said.
Despite the partially open door, the steam from the shower was beginning to fill the small room, making her skin feel even more warm and damp. The spray of the water muted every word and she found herself leaning closer, placing her hand on the back of the toilet tank to brace herself.
“There is an uninhabited house on the northwest side of the settlement. Do you remember it?”
Sage thought for a moment. “I remember there being an area they told us to stay away from. They said it was dangerous, with old buildings that could collapse on us. I guess it might have been in that area. Northwest? Maybe. What did you find there?”
“The house is where a lot of the men hang out. And where the camera feeds go.” Simon’s face had taken on a sharpness that made his handsome angles look brittle and waxy.
Sage waited for him to explain, but a nervous tingling had started up her spine. She knew it wasn’t going to be happy news.
“They’re definitely filming or at least watching everything,” Simon said. “Everything. So we have to be very careful. I don’t think they’d be very happy to know that we’re not who we say we are.”
“Did you find anything about Remington Truth?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t talk to anyone. Anything on your end?”
“I’ve sort of mentioned the name a few times, just to see if anyone recognized it.”
“That’s probably not a good idea,” he said. “Letting people know we’re looking for him.”
Sage shook her head. “Well, it’s not common knowledge that the Strangers and gangas are looking for him. I’ve never heard the name before you and Quent showed up, and if the Waxnickis didn’t know, with all the work they’ve done, I don’t think the name would mean anything to anyone else. So I don’t think that it should be a red flag to anyone. And no one seems to recognize it, anyway.”
Simon nodded. “Okay. I trust your judgment on that.” Then he looked up at her, sort of sidewise, and their eyes met. Sage’s belly flipped. “But be careful about it, all right?”
Oh God, oh God, I can’t breathe.
She almost did it, almost moved forward—it would only take a bit—but she held back. “Okay,” she managed to say.
“We have to be very careful not to arouse suspicion. Act like a couple who really embraces this way of life,” he said. “That’s why I needed to make sure I had a reason for disappearing.”
Crapola. I have to tell him.
With the door closed and the hot water blasting, the room was getting warmer and steamier, the walls and shower curtain all merging into muted colors and texture. She could hardly see the shower or the floor, or even the wall near her. But she could see Simon’s face clearly through the murkiness.
“Is there anything else?” she asked, dragging in a hot, moist breath. Delaying the bomb she had to drop. “That you found out?”
“I think the roof or top floor of one of those abandoned houses would be a good place for the NAP. I don’t think it would be stumbled upon there.”
“How are we going to get the stuff inside the settlement?”
“I can do that.” He stilled, as if contemplating something, then looked at her. “I should probably tell you something.” He shifted his jaw and his cheeks became more hollow.
“I have to tell you something too,” she said in a rush before she lost her courage.
He became very still. “What.” He wasn’t asking a question. It was almost as if he already knew.
Just then, there was a little sizzle and a pop…and the light suddenly dimmed. Sage nearly jumped, her heart slamming, before she realized it was just a lightbulb burning out. Another one remained lit, but it gave off only a sickly yellow glow.
An ugly yellow glow, foggy and muted, but enough that she could easily see the very set, very blank expression on Simon’s face. Too bad the lights hadn’t gone out all together—it would have been a lot easier to tell him. She might even have gotten up the courage to see what it was like to kiss him.
Maybe. If it were dark.
“I’m ovulating,” she said, rushing through the words, feeling her face burn red. “We’re going to have to—”
“No.” He actually pulled back. He couldn’t look anymore repelled if he held his arms up to block her as if she were a demon. “No, we’re not going to do that.”
Do that. Geesh. He made it sound like the most abhorrent activity. Gee, thanks. “You just got done saying we had to act—”
“We’ll fake it,” he said in a less strained voice. “No problem.”
“Okay.” She looked at him. “But…uh…how?”
“What, you want a fucking play by play?” He stood abruptly and opened the door. A waft of cooler air invaded, dissipating the steam. “Under the sheets, they won’t see what’s happening,” he said, turning back to her. Then he turned and whipped the shower curtain open and slammed his palm a bit more forcefully than necessary against the faucet to turn off the water. “Okay?”
Sage nodded. But she had one more thing to tell him. She stood, moving close enough that they nearly touched so that she could speak low. Somehow her hand ended up on his arm. “I’ve never…I’m a virgin.”
He looked startled, then his face returned to its blank expression. “I assumed you and Theo—”
“Just because he was kissing me at the festival?”
“Or someone else…maybe,” Simon said quickly, not quite as softly as he should have. But they were still in the bathroom and the water was dripping loudly from the showerhead. “In the past, that you…knew. I mean…you’re…” His voice trailed off and he seemed very clearly stuck with how to proceed.
Sage didn’t say anything. She couldn’t have if she knew what to say, but she didn’t. I’m…what? What?
“Sage, I need to…”
“It was never the right time,” she said. “Or the right person.”
“Theo will be
glad to know that. Very glad.” And then he pushed past her, leaving Sage in a steamy bathroom with her heart pounding and an odd feeling settling over her.
Would being in Falling Creek take away her chance to decide on the right person, at the right time?
Or would it help her find him?
Simon left the guest room, his mind scrambling. He was not about to let himself think about the conversation that had just happened in the bathroom. Instead, he found other things to occupy his thoughts.
Such as…how was he going to account for the time he needed to spend going to retrieve their electronics? He could only use the excuse of being dumb enough to get trapped for “hours” under a piece of drywall one time. If he disappeared—literally or figuratively—and it was noticed, that would cast suspicion on them.
He wasn’t worried about himself of course, but for Sage.
And the problem was, if the FCers were watching the camera feed for their room, they’d know when he left and when he returned. Unless they saw him go into the bathroom, where he was pretty sure there wasn’t a camera…and didn’t see him come out until later.
That could work.
Simon knew the crazies at the Community House were waiting for him to get patched up by Sage, and then for him to come back and meet with the cook to talk about his abilities and kitchen-patrol duties. He was just going to have to be too tired and sore to leave the room for a while.
Hm. Maybe he could be too tired and sore to fuck his wife tonight. Who was ovulating.
Even the thought, in such cold, brutal, inaccurate terms made Simon’s palms go a little damp. And what was up with that? His palms never went damp. Even the time he’d come face-to-face with Tré Han, Mancusi’s hated enemy…