My vision blurred and darkness closed in.
∆
I woke well after dawn and sat up. The hammock swung lazily back and forth. When I climbed out and noted the approximate time, I realized I’d slept for just under 11 hours.
Progressively, my sleep cycle was improving.
Flick was nowhere in sight but I assumed he was close to the house.
After I sponged off with a damp towel, I dressed in my grey clothing, drank a malted protein concoction and braided my hair. Flick’s absence was becoming a concern.
Where was he?
As I stepped outside to locate him, I saw a stately woman with neatly trimmed white hair, sitting in a metal chair on the beach, with her back to the doorway.
She turned her head slightly as I approached and then refocused her gaze on the sea as if I were of only minor consequence.
The jetcar was gone.
Flick was gone.
Three enforcement officers loitered a few meters away, but their stance suggested they looked prepared to take action if necessary.
I stood motionless exactly where I was.
The woman didn’t bother to look at me as she spoke. “Come and sit with me, Keeley.”
She snapped her fingers and one of the enforcement officers darted forward with a second folding chair. He placed it beside her and backed away quickly, retreating far enough that he and his companions wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation, but close enough they could sprint to her side if needed.
I sat down in the chair silently, taking in as much information as I could.
She wore a sleek white dress and sensible flat sandals. The dress looked almost architectural in its design, and her steel-colored eyes wandered over the water with only mild interest.
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was suddenly very, very dry. “Hello, Nasha.”
She looked over at me then. Contemplative/peeved.
Her skin was surprisingly smooth, creamy and contrasted a great deal with her razor sharp features. She was not young, but it was difficult to determine her age. Her straight posture and strong looking hands indicated robust health, but her white hair and the deep lines around her mouth and eyes gave the impression that she was much older than her appearance suggested.
A vain, powerful, and unsympathetic woman sat before me. One who harbored a strong dislike for problems.
I was her current problem.
She sighed, almost like she was trying to decide what dish to order. “You were not an easy person to find, Keeley.”
“I have been told that,” I said.
Her lower lip twitched. “After you have answered all of my questions to my satisfaction, I will tell you what I have decided to do with you.”
“Alright.”
Nasha flashed me a warning look. She had not appreciated my tone of voice.
She took a moment to gather her thoughts before speaking again.
“Aren’t you curious about what I’ve done with your young man?” she asked.
“Unless he escaped before you arrived, he is in your custody.”
One of her eyebrows twitched upward fractionally.
She allowed me a moment to plead for information about Flick, and when I failed to do so, she cleared her throat with irritation and stared back out at the water.
“Your brother has been very naughty, Keeley. Very naughty indeed.”
I gave no response.
She grew impatient. “What have you got to say about that?”
“I was waiting for you to ask a question.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. Careful young woman. I can destroy you.
I lowered my chin and dropped my shoulders. Contrite/cooperative. “I will attempt to answer your questions, but you should know I have no memory of my past.”
“And yet you have managed to do remarkably well in spite of that fact,” she said.
“I am resourceful.”
“Resourceful enough to escape my new medical facility, flood it to the rafters, and kill two of my best girls in the process.”
“I was assisted,” I said.
“Yes,” she murmured. “The dissenters. That is… disappointing.”
“Dissenters. Is that what they call themselves?”
Smug/satisfied. “That is what I call them.”
She liked it very much when I asked questions that only she knew the answers to.
My next question seemed obvious. “Who are the dissenters?”
“Members of an ideological splinter inside the New Authority. They disapprove of my activities.”
“And who is the New Authority?” I asked.
She tilted her head slightly to the side. Assured/arrogant. “I am.”
I let her statement stand without comment for a moment to convey the fact that I understood just how powerful she really was.
Her shoulders lifted fractionally higher as she leaned back in her chair and resumed her examination of the sparkling ocean.
“I was a guest of your New Authority recently?” I asked.
She gave a slight nod. “Until you were liberated by the dissenters, yes.”
I considered this new information. “Did my brother abuse his position as governor and take advantage of your organization?”
She fiddled with the collar of her dress. “Yes, he did.”
“And you did not learn of this until after the fact.”
Nasha compressed her lips. “That is correct. You have a remarkable aptitude for analysis, Keeley.”
The data that had once been a mad tangle of irreconcilable questions was coming into sharper focus.
My mind began the process of drawing conclusions. “I assume that Broyce Farber transferred me into your medical program without permission.”
“Doing so because of sentimentality,” she said with disgust. “He knows what is at stake here. Sentiment has no bearing on the program whatsoever and he lied, scrubbed and manipulated it until he got you back.”
“Back from where?” I asked.
“Back from the dead, my girl. You drowned in an accident in Aukholm two months ago.”
For the third time since this ordeal had begun, I was genuinely stunned.
I had drowned? Two months ago?
She arched one eyebrow as she spoke. “Your darling brother contrived it so you would enter my program in spite of your ineligibility. He intended to slip you into my refugee population and hide you with the others in New Dublin. As if I wouldn’t notice.”
In spite of my best efforts, processing the information was difficult. I ignored my primary emotional response, which in this case was disbelief, and focused on the problem.
“Why was I ineligible?”
“Because Obsequium didn’t kill you, a reflecting pool at the waterfall pavilion did. You slipped, hit your head on a safety rail, and fell into the water. No one who dies of any cause other than the virus is eligible for the re-animate program.”
“Re-animate program,” I repeated. “That, presumably, is exactly what it sounds like?”
She tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair. “Exactly what it sounds like.”
The New Authority medical program re-animated dead citizens? No wonder this woman had been so determined to keep it a secret.
“So there are no immigrants from this island who possess a natural immunity,” I said. “The people brought into New Dublin on those small boats are all a part of your program.”
Nasha grimaced, conceding that truth. “The immigrant story is just that. A story. We only re-animate victims of the virus, and all of them come from cities other than New Dublin. It is easy to say we are removing the body for incineration and no one questions what happens to it. But more importantly, it is the only way so far that we have found that will enable us to maintain our population.”
The only way to maintain the population? I thought hard about that statement. “Public information concerning the virus lethality is inaccurate?”
She scoffed. “Comp
letely inaccurate. It kills everyone.”
I thought about the implications of that fact. “Everyone.”
“Obsequium kills one hundred percent of its victims. There are no pockets of immunity. It is unforgiving. And it is slowly spreading from the interior of the continent to the coastal areas, and we are unable to stop it.”
“Have you tried developing a vaccine?” I asked.
Her lip twitched with irritation. “Of course. But we have not been able to produce one, and my doctors tell me it might be impossible to do so.”
I pressed on. “After someone dies from the virus, you enter them into the re-animation program. What happens to them when they complete the process? Are they immune to the virus?” I asked.
“As far as we are able to determine, yes. With…consequences,” she replied.
What did she mean? What sort of consequences?
Well, the lack of a memory for one.
But her bitter tone suggested there were other side effects of an even worse nature.
She’d just indicated the re-animate program was the only way she had found so far to maintain the human population.
What was missing from New Dublin? What had I not observed once during my time there?
“Babies,” I said, more to myself than to her. “There are no babies in the city. The process renders women sterile. They can no longer reproduce.”
She nodded shrewdly. “Very good, Keeley. You are quite perceptive.”
“How old are the youngest children in New Dublin?” I asked.
“We enter everyone who dies of Obsequium into the program but less than half of them are re-animated successfully. Children under the age of twelve never re-animate. We don’t understand why.”
“There are no children younger than twelve in the city?”
“That is correct.”
This information prompted yet more questions. “Why don’t you accept citizens into the program who have died of causes other than the virus?”
“We did, once,” she said. “The virus confers a biological resiliency to its victims that enables the re-animation process to work, and we still don’t understand why. Years ago, I gave permission for my physicians to attempt to re-animate hundreds of citizens who died of causes other than the virus, but none of them lived. Until now.”
She looked at me pointedly.
That explained why the dissenters had been so keen to liberate me from Nasha’s program.
I had survived a process that no one else like me had ever managed to do before.
I was a medical impossibility.
She studied my face, anticipating my next question. “Yes, you are quite a miracle. I must apologize for ordering your execution when I first learned of your existence. At the time, I was not in possession of all the pertinent details. I thought you were one of the dissenters.”
The rhythm of her words, coupled with her frequent downward glances told me she truly had changed her mind about wanting me dead and was fully aware how close she had come to killing humanity’s savior. Regret irritated Nasha. Her way to cope with the emotion was to ignore it and move on.
Now, she very much wanted me alive.
Nasha leaned toward me and folded her hands in her lap, looking at me like I was one of her oldest friends. “Our species is dying out, my girl. One by one. I’m doing everything I can to preserve us. But we are running out of time.”
My particular situation was starting to become clear. “I am the only person who has survived the program who did not die of the virus and you want to know why?”
“I will know why, in time,” she said. “You will be made available to my doctors, and through careful study of your physiology we will learn what makes you…different.”
“Can I have children?” I asked.
She gave a slight grimace. “That has yet to be determined.”
“But you intend to do so.”
Righteousness/entitlement. “Of course. You are an invaluable asset. All options are being considered.”
The rough parameters of my fate had been outlined, but now it was time to decide the finer details.
Nasha lifted a hand and smoothed a lock of white hair away from her eyes. “Do you think it is easy maintaining a civilization on the brink of extinction? It requires incredibly complex planning, and the ability to make sacrifices of yourself and others.”
“I agree.”
She blinked. Surprise/appreciation.
“I’m very pleased to hear that,” she said. “You see what I am trying to achieve here.”
“Of course.”
She turned her gaze back to the ocean. “Now that I have you in my control once again, we will keep you at an appropriate facility until my physicians have identified the quality you seem to possess that the others of us are lacking. Once we have discovered why you are alive, we will begin the process of attempting to replicate your biology.”
“My brother?” I asked.
“He will be reassigned. I’ve got a vacant station in the sanitation division in a northern city he would be perfect for.”
“What about Flick?”
She shifted in her chair. “Francis 11 is an extraordinarily proficient agent. Killing him would be a waste of a very valuable man. Tomorrow morning, after we’ve got the power working again, I will have him taken to the old base, infected with the virus, allowed to die, and entered into the re-animate program. After he wakes up, I’ll put him back into service, working for me.”
I recalled she’d indicated that less than half of those who went through the procedure survived.
She continued with her matter-of-fact tone. “When he completes the program he will still be a Grey, have his skills and training intact, but will no longer suffer from his rebellious tendencies.”
His memory would be stolen from him, his future would be shaped by the will of this woman, and I would never see him again.
That was unacceptable.
I studied my hands, thinking.
A tiny red pinprick of dried blood on the back of my left hand caught my eye. I’d been injected, or blood had been taken. Either way, I’d been examined while I had been asleep.
I turned my wrist over and saw that Flick’s skinner was no longer there.
They had thoroughly gone over my body before I regained consciousness, and it was highly doubtful that her team had missed anything.
There was no way for me to contact Flick, or track him.
What were my options?
Negotiating with Nasha would be pointless.
If I indicated that I would not cooperate with her unless she promised me Flick would be allowed to return to his normal life, she would simply have me sedated, or restrained, and do what she wanted with me anyway.
Faced with these facts there was only one course of action to take.
I formulated a plan quickly and determined the necessary steps needed to make it successful.
Resolved, I turned to Nasha and expressed defeat/compliance. “I’ll do what you what. I’m tired of running.”
She studied my face, satisfied by my lack of defiance. Then she rose from her chair and smoothed the fabric of her complex white dress. “Now, come with me. And, Keeley? Don’t make a fuss.”
Nasha walked across the beach to the airship and her three enforcement officers dutifully surrounded me and escorted me along.
They didn’t bother gathering up the two chairs but simply left them on the sand, abandoning them after they had served their purpose.
The three men loaded me into the airship gently and had obviously been instructed to handle me with care.
They would be averse to hurting me, and that was useful information for me to have, considering what I planned to do next.
PART III
The airship lifted off the ground and the huge engines thrummed with raw power as we climbed. We likely would be traveling at a faster speed than even the jetcar was capable of maintaining, and I estimated the trip back to the city would
take less than three hours.
Nasha sat in the co-pilot seat, arguing with someone over an earpiece.
One of the enforcement officers piloted, and the remaining two sat across from me in the cargo compartment.
The man closest to me was a thin-faced, disinterested officer with bushy dark hair, and he ignored me. The other, a wide man with a square jaw and short blond hair, watched me intently, anticipating any sign of confrontation.
I did a quick situational evaluation.
The governor’s jetcar was gone, and probably one of Nasha’s men had taken it back to the city.
Flick was most likely in a second airship with a team of enforcement officers. Had I been in Nasha’s position, I wouldn’t have allowed Flick to leave the island with fewer than four men. No doubt, he’d been incapacitated before departure and was probably unconscious, but when he woke up, it would take at least that many highly trained men to keep him subdued.
But where were they taking him?
Bee had flooded, and presumably rendered inoperable, the medical bay where the re-animation procedure had recently been performed, so they would not be taking Flick there.
The ‘old base,’ as Nasha had referred to it, was obviously the decommissioned NARPA base. The next morning Flick would be transferred to that location to be infected.
So I knew where Flick was ultimately bound, but until the NARPA base was powered up again in the morning, where would they hold him overnight? Somewhere isolated, secure, and far outside the city.
His bunker, of course.
Good.
Now, where would they be taking me?
I glanced at the back of Nasha’s head while I considered.
Her seat of power was centralized at the childcare and education system. The education academy was where Canda had ambushed Flick and me.
Likely, that was my destination.
I knew where we were going; now it was time to mitigate the likely response that would come from my guards after we arrived.
I looked away from Nasha and stared at the two men.
The stocky, thick-necked blond man squinted suspiciously as I met his eyes.
“He used to talk about you. Skee was my…” I said, deliberately trailing off.
The New Authority Conspiracy (The Keeley Dorn Adventures Book 1) Page 19