by Sylvia Ryan
Xander stepped through the side door of police headquarters and lifted his face toward the thunderclouds and sprinkling rain. He breathed deeply. Anticipation and contentment swirled in his chest. He was ready to get back to normal, having a female assigned to him, someone to care for again. The practice of single Amber males caring for their assigned female suited him, fulfilled an inexplicable need in his personality. It made him a better man.
An hour later, Xander, Rock and Brady, the electronics specialist, as well as Wes, the homicide detective from the last fallow cases, were all gathered around the large briefing room table in Amber Zone Police Headquarters. The atmosphere was relaxed. Everyone knew one another. The officers assigned to the Circle City area were like family to each other. All of them, except the captain, were single and lived in Circle City as well.
Captain Rush’s sharp eyes lasered in on the team members as he walked in the door. Rush reminded Xander of a predatory bird. His bald head and pointy beak nose added to the effect.
“Let me give you the overview of what we have so far,” he said, getting right down to business. “The last three fallows assigned to Circle City from other zones have wound up dead within weeks of their placement here. The first, Stacey Adams…” He tapped his stylus on his handheld to bring up a projection on the board. “Was originally taken at face value as, what we thought at the time, was an obvious suicide by some kind of poisoning.
“A month and a half later, another fallow came in from the Sapphire Zone, Tanisha Washington.” He projected another photo. “Three weeks after her placement in building nineteen, she was found dead in her apartment by her roommate. Her wrists were slashed. At first glance, this looked like a suicide as well. But after investigation, the evidence didn’t support suicide. It looked more like a murder set up to pass as a suicide.
“The last victim, also a fallow from Sapphire…” Another picture projected. “…August Zayzinski was found drowned in the Circle City public swimming pool. Again, questionable injuries not consistent with drowning.
“The deaths were reported on the news feeds as suicides, and accident in the last case. We don’t want this guy tipped off that we’re on to him. We know his MO, which leads us to his obvious next victim. The captain switched the picture on the whiteboard. “Jaci Harmon. We’ve been keeping the female spot in Xander’s apartment open waiting for the next fallow. She was transferred there this afternoon.”
Xander studied the picture of his new roommate. She was pretty. A small feeling of trepidation washed over him. God he hoped she wasn’t bratty like some of the other women transferred in from one of the more privileged zones.
“Jordan is covering the apartment now. As of her last check in, Miss Harmon hasn’t left the apartment or let anybody in. According to Jordan, she hasn’t so much as even turned on a light.
“Xander, along with Rock and Jordan will be responsible for surveillance. You guys have to put together a schedule. See that she’s always covered. Brady will monitor bugs of the apartment as well as incoming and outgoing com activity. I’ll contact the supervisor at her work assignment and place Jordan to work with her there.”
They all spent the next twelve hours breaking down the previous cases with Wes, hammering out surveillance schedules and setting up the monitoring system that would track the chip in Jaci’s com, giving her exact location as well as bugging her conversations and messages. It was late morning when the group finally left the station. Xander was exhausted by the time he headed out to meet up with Jordan, who’d been doing surveillance all night.
He sat with her, sweating his ass off, in the police cruiser parked outside of building seventeen. He just finished updating Jordan on the strategy meeting she’d missed and was delighted to be the one to tell her about her new job assignment as painter, when she pointed to the building.
“There she is. They’re delivering her back home.”
Xander watched Jaci as the sterilization transport staff pushed her wheelchair into the side entrance of the building. She sat unmoving, her arms wrapped around herself, and her gaze fixed down at her lap.
“Shit.” His heart broke while he watched her being wheeled inside. She looked spent, like she had nothing left. “I should have been there last night and this morning. She needed me.”
Jordan answered him with a sympathetic look and a pat on the shoulder.
A few minutes later, they watched the transport pull away. He sighed. “I’m beat. I’m going to get some sleep.”
“Me too. I still have to talk with Caroline and let her know that I want to volunteer for the Sit-In Team. They’ll probably show up within the next few hours.”
“Sounds good. Come on. I’ll walk you up to your new apartment. Oh, by the way, Brady’s your roommate, in case you haven’t figured that out already.” He chuckled as he got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. “He’s finishing up his surveillance setup.”
“What was the chuckle for?” Jordan shot him a glare.
“No chuckle.” He smiled down at her. “Brady’s been waiting his whole career to have a case like this. I’m wondering if he’ll even notice you’re there with all his electronics, slash stakeout, slash contingency supplies there.”
She smiled up at him. “Go ahead and yuck it up. You won’t be when he saves your ass.”
“Let’s hope that never happens. I’d never live it down.”
On the ninth floor, Xander checked in with Brady and picked up the bug he needed to plant in his own apartment, promising to plant it as soon as he walked in the door.
He was dead on his feet as he rode the musty-smelling elevator to the fourth floor.
It was silent when he walked into the apartment. He expected Jaci to be in bed, sleeping, and was surprised to find the bed empty. The window shade was pulled down, darkening the room. A slit of artificial light escaped from underneath the bathroom door. He planted the bug underneath the lamp on her bedside table and settled himself at the dinette set, waiting for her to exit. After a while, he listened for movement inside the bathroom. He heard none. Another couple of minutes passed. Still nothing.
Walking over to the bathroom door, he tapped lightly. “Jaci? Are you okay in there?” He waited, ear close to the door. No answer. He tried the knob. It was locked. He pounded with the side of his fist this time “Jaci. Open the door,” he shouted, trying to force back the feeling of dread that crept up his spine.
Xander covered the three strides it took to get to the kitchen in seconds, and was back at the bathroom door, butter knife in hand, to unlock it.
He swung the door open and found her sitting on the floor between the tub and toilet. She was in a paper clinic gown, with her bare legs tucked up in front of her and her head drooping forward.
“Jaci?” He stepped in and lifted her chin so he could get a good look at her. She was an alarming shade of gray. An empty prescription bottle sat on the closed lid of the toilet.
“Goddammit,” he yelled, as he fell to his knees, pulling her toward him, and then whirling her around until he held her upright, with her back to his chest, and his arm wrapped around her waist.
“Brady,” he barked, loudly. “She’s OD’ing on painkillers.” He lifted the lid of the toilet, sending the pill bottle flying, and leaned her forward over the bowl. Her head bobbled on her neck as he stuck his fingers down her throat. The reflex was immediate as the contents of her stomach expelled into the bowl. A smattering of partially dissolved tablets plopped into the water, decorating the bottom of the bowl with light blue dots. He made her vomit again and again until nothing came up anymore. Then, he scooped her up and carried her to the bed.
Xander laid her down and felt her neck at the carotid. Slow, lazy thumps surged underneath the pad of his finger. Her chest rose and fell in long labored breaths.
He looked at her ashen face and the dusky circles under her eyes. His heart bloomed with the need to ease her anguish and protect her from the rest of the world. It was clear that the las
t twenty-four hours had destroyed her.
Xander’s hand was on its way up to touch his ear bud to call Brady, when he walked through the apartment door, closing and locking it behind him. He dug through the bag he carried, finally pulling out a syringe. “Narcan,” he said, holding it up before popping the cover off the needle and injecting her. “That’s all I got in my bag of tricks.” He met Xander’s eyes. “I’m out of here, but I’ll be listening in case you need anything,” he said, turning around and walking back through the apartment door.
He stood in the darkened room with his blood boiling. His chest heaved as he raked a hand through his hair and paced back and forth next to the bed.
Then focusing on Jaci’s form, Xander brushed a lock of hair from her face. Her skin began to lose some of the deathly gray pallor it exhibited only a minute before. Already, she looked better. She was going to survive this.
His panic dulled enough for other emotions to seep in. “Holy fucking hell. Dammit.” He stormed, knocking a chair over and kicking it across the room. Then, he sat heavily in the one remaining by the table, leaning over, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. Air rushed savagely in and out of his lungs. He attempted to calm the fury he felt, taking long minutes to recover from the massive adrenaline surge.
Finally somewhat calmed, he took a deep breath and looked up at Jaci’s unconscious body. This was his fault. He hadn’t been here. She didn’t know that she already had family here, had someone who cared about her, who would take care of her.
Well, there was absolutely no chance she’d get the opportunity to do something like this again. She was going to see just how seriously he took his responsibility.
Xander stripped down to his underwear and slid into the bed. He grasped Jaci’s wrist firmly. She wouldn’t be going anywhere without him knowing about it.
Soon, the hens on the Sit-In Team would take over. And the leader of the hen parade, Caroline, would be trying to shoo him out. He grunted. Good luck with that.
Chapter 3
She wasn’t dead.
Disappointment settled, cold and painful, in the pit of Jaci’s stomach.
When she learned there was no hospital in the Amber Zone and that she’d be transported back to the apartment after her sterilization, she’d been shocked. But she eventually realized that they gave her the easy out she’d been searching for. The clinic staff provided a bottle of painkillers to take home.
But it hadn’t worked.
She cracked open her eyes. A quick sweep of the room told her it was dark outside. It was hard to see anything other than all the women who surrounded her. There were several in bed with her, touching her, comforting her. Jaci’s head was on a pillow in a woman’s lap.
“It’s okay, Jaci. We’re all here for you,” someone whispered in her ear. It was the person caressing her hair.
“Are you my roommate?” Jaci’s throat was dry, her voice gravelly.
“No, I’m Caroline.”
“Why are all these people here?”
“Jenna from the sterilization clinic sent a u-com about you.”
“They sent a universal com about me?”
“Only to building seventeen. It’s standard procedure.”
“So, everybody in the building…knows?” Jaci paused. “How humiliating,” she whispered more to herself than anybody else in the room.
“Shhh, don’t worry about that.” Caroline raised her up so she could take a sip of water from a straw somebody else held to her mouth. “Oh, before I forget, your assigned com is on the night table when you’re ready for it. A lot of our numbers have already been downloaded in.
“I would tell you everybody else’s name, but you wouldn’t remember them right now anyway.” Caroline was still gently raking Jaci’s hair with her fingertips. “Tomorrow, you’ll feel much better and we’ll all have plenty of time to talk. For now, relax. We’re not going anywhere tonight.”
For the rest of the evening Jaci succumbed to a hazy flurry of women everywhere.
She fell into a bizarre funhouse sleep with oddly realistic and suffocating dreams. Pain woke her occasionally, and each time she opened her eyes, she was still surrounded by women. Later, they slept with her. A tangle of females covered the big bed, their bodies pressing close to her and each other. It seemed like a dozen hands reached out, touching her. Their vigilance kept her prisoner in a cocoon of female flesh. The oddity of their behavior drove away her immediate despair and provided brief moments of respite from the amalgam of physical and emotional pain.
When Jaci woke up the next morning with a clearer head, Caroline and another woman, Emily, whose name she remembered only because of her purple-tipped hair, were still there. She recognized the two other women present, but she couldn’t remember their names.
“How are you feeling?” Caroline asked when she realized Jaci was awake.
She pegged the woman with a foggy gaze, “Okay, considering.”
“Didn’t they send home any pain meds with you? I couldn’t find any.”
“I don’t know,” Jaci lied, closing her eyes.
“I brought some that were left over from other sit-ins when I couldn’t find yours. Do you want one?”
“Yes,” she croaked through parched lips. “Numb would be nice right now.”
Caroline walked to the counter separating the living area from the kitchen and shook a couple of tablets from a bottle. She returned with a glass of water and two tablets in her hand. Jaci accepted them wincing slightly as she sat up enough to take the pills.
“Thanks for staying with me, but you guys don’t have to stay anymore. I’m sure you have better things to do.”
“Nope. You’re it. We’re the Sit-In Team and you’re stuck with us until our job is done.”
“Job?” Jaci shook her head. “I’m lost.”
“The Team helps new fallows from other zones adjust,” Caroline said. “I’m the Sit-In Team Leader.”
“We’ve got a lot of things to talk about today,” the woman in the corner said. “My name’s Hannah, by the way, in case you don’t remember from last night. You were pretty out of it.” She patted Jaci’s blanket covered leg.
“And I’m Jordan. We’re gong to be working together once you’re up and around.”
All of the women sort of looked alike. All had brown hair and brown eyes like she did. She would have to pay attention to faces more closely since virtually everybody designated as an Amber had brown hair and brown eyes.
Caroline had shoulder length straight brown hair with bangs. Her face was scrubbed clean which gave her appearance of being a bit plain.
After Jaci swallowed her pills, Caroline took a deep breath and spoke first. “Well, welcome to the Amber Zone.”
Jaci looked at her lap and then looked at the other women. “Thank you.”
They all smiled back at her with kindness. Or was it pity she saw in their eyes?
“Living in Amber is going to be different from what you’re used to. Are you up to talking now? Or do you want to hold off for a while?” Caroline asked.
“Now’s okay.”
“Good. Well, let’s see. Starting’s always the hard part.” Caroline looked up at the ceiling for a moment as if she was figuring out exactly what words to use.
“I’ve been doing this long enough to know you feel like you’ve lost everything, that you’ve been dumped here. I also know what the other designations think of us, that we’re stupid and diseased. Part of our job as the Sit-In Team is to help you understand that, for the most part, we’re just like you.” She took Jaci’s hand. “You’re already accepted as one of us and you never have to feel abandoned or alone.
Jaci looked down at their joined hands, feeling slightly weird about it. She hadn’t held another woman’s hand since she was a young girl reaching out for the comfort of her mother.
“The major difference about our way of life compared to the other classes has nothing to do with our eye color or IQ. Our zone is completely different tho
ugh, better, in my opinion. But I need to fill you in on some of our social norms that are different from what you’re used to.”
Jaci’s mind latched on to the word better and didn’t track much after that. That woman actually thought life was better here? “Okay,” she said, as if she was asking what the punch line was.
Caroline went on. “Let me go back and tell you the history. It’ll help explain why things are the way they are. If that makes any sense.” She laughed.
“About twenty-five years ago, as a part of an agreement made with the Amber leaders at the time, the Gov researched and developed a program to help the Amber couples who were free of Automatic Disqualifiers raise their one and only child in a way that would reduce the suffering brought on by the Repopulation Laws. Doctors and other professionals determined that social support was the best way to cope with the sterilizations and other crippling conditions, as well as the restrictions Ambers have to deal with regularly.
“Back then, our parents were miserable, and they wanted their children to be happier than they were. Mandatory parenting classes were developed that taught new parents how to raise our generation so that coping mechanisms are developed and in place from birth. They went to the classes gladly. Every parent was desperate to have their one and only child live a happier life than they had. They were hopeful that this program was the solution, so they rigorously followed the recommendations and totally immersed us in an environment of unconditional acceptance and almost constant touch.
“Now, people who have been born and raised as Ambers, our generation, have a stronger connection with each other. We have built in coping skills to help us deal with the Repopulation Laws as well as all of the inevitable catastrophic illnesses that many of us were diagnosed with at our genetic testing.”
“Here in Amber, we don’t have the invisible don’t-touch zone around us like you had in Sapphire. Touching is no different for us than breathing,” Jordan cut in. “We just do it. We don’t think about it. It’s such an intrinsic part of our lives that many Ambers have difficulty going periods of time without the support of someone else’s touch.”