Marie's Journey (Ginecean Chronicles)

by La Porta, Monica

  Luna waited until the last spoonful of porridge disappeared in her mouth. “Do you want to know anything in particular?”

  Marie inwardly sighed. Maybe she could speed up the process. He squeezed the hand she had let trail by his side and she faced him, since the first question was about him. “What happened to you? Nora told me you’d been sentenced to the inner chamber to…” She couldn’t say it. She had stabbed a pure breed for the chance of being sent here to see him one more time. In her thoughts, she had seen him dying, emaciated, and wasted by the toxins. The mere thought still caused her pain.

  Grant held her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “I was. I still am.”

  “I don’t understand.” She looked at the women who nodded.

  “It’s true. Per the major’s orders, he’s working in the inner chamber right now.” Corinthia walked a step closer to the bed. “We had to keep him there while the pure breeds were around. They’ve never actually stayed longer than a few hours to check on the recycling facility. Usually, we send people inside the chamber only to get them out as soon as the coast is clear. This time, we had to leave him inside longer than was safe.”

  Marie wasn’t following. There were so many things she didn’t know, but Luna continued before she could ask anything. “Ginecea doesn’t care about the conditions fathered women have to work in here—do you think the pure breeds mind if men die operating the machines in the inner chamber? Vasura is no different than one of their maximum-security facilities. People sent here aren’t expected to live long.”

  “Men aren’t expected to live at all.” Grant’s eyes became colder, but a moment later, he looked down at their intertwined hands and made a visible effort to relax his features. “Here, we’re useless. They don’t need us to father women, since the workforce is constantly replenished, and our arms can be easily replaced by women labor.”

  “So why send you here at all?” Marie had wondered about that.

  Luna gave her an enigmatic smile and answered, “Believe it or not, pure breeds believe themselves to be highly civilized. They would never dispose of the slaves—”She made an apologetic face meant for Grant. “Sorry, that’s how Ginecea still thinks of you.”

  Grant raised his free hand to accept the apology. “No offense taken. I don’t care what they call me. I’ve never thought of myself as a worker. I’m a man.”

  “Anyway, even among pure breeds, there are good souls—” This time, Luna had to stop for Marie, who had snorted out loud.

  “Pure breeds are a selfish, useless race.” She couldn’t help the acid coating her words.

  “Well, there’re also pure breeds who cared for you when you were brought here,” Corinthia timidly added.

  “Yes, after leaving me like this!” The wounds on her back must have awoken as she said the words because stabbing pain shot through her and she gasped. She was mad at Corinthia to even suggest that giving her drugged water would be enough to excuse the soldiers who had escorted her there. “They watched as I was whipped and did nothing.” With her teeth clenched, the last sentence was no more than a rattle.

  Without saying a word, Luna reached inside one of the pockets in her gray scrubs and procured a syringe. “Something to ease the pain?”

  Marie nodded and Luna swiftly held her forearm and injected the medicine. A sudden sensation of cold was followed by warmth and numbness. She relaxed on the bed once again.

  A long moment of silence ensued, then Corinthia cleared her voice and said, “They didn’t do anything, but there are others risking their lives to give you medical assistance.” Her eyes went to Luna and she smiled at her. One of those smiles that has inner meanings.

  Luna lowered her eyes and Marie thought she saw her blush. “You’re a pure breed?” She gave the woman a better look and she found the telltale signs of refined ancestry. “Of course you are.” No fathered woman would have that bearing. Now that she knew, every single feature in her face gave her away. “I truly was out of it if I didn’t realize it earlier.”

  “You’re looking at me differently.” Luna moved away from the bed.

  Marie appreciated the gesture. “I can’t help it.” She regretted having said that immediately. As far as she knew, the woman had only been kind to her. “Thank you for what you’re doing for me.”

  “I understand your rage. I do.” Luna was now by Corinthia’s side. They weren’t touching, but the way they stood close to each other betrayed their familiarity.

  “Do you?” Marie could see Luna was different, but how could a pure breed know what was passing through her head?

  “I was the last supervisor before Callista—”

  Marie interrupted the woman. “You were the one who accepted the bribe and was out of Vasura after a few hours?”

  Luna and Corinthia both smiled a similar smile and then Corinthia said, “I did try to give you money to get rid of you, didn’t I?”

  An amused light shone in Luna’s eyes. “You did.”

  Marie watched as the women exchanged a look so intense she had to avert her eyes, only to end up staring at Grant and blush anyway at his stare. “So you decided to stay, I gather.”

  Luna beamed. “Yes, I decided to stay, or to be precise, I decided to come back.”

  “But how? Did your family accept… that?” Marie lamely looked at some point between the two women.

  Luna waved her hand in the air. “Long story short, I have no family and nobody knows I’m here. As Ginecea is concerned, after reporting that everything was fine at Vasura, I retired to an isolated farm left to me by my parents.”

  “What about friends?”

  “I was always a loner. A long time ago, I lost track of the few friends I had in college. It was rather simple for me to disappear.” Luna’s knuckles brushed Corinthia’s hand.

  Marie thought it was sad that nobody missed this woman, pure breed or not, but she looked happier for it. “And what are you doing here… here?” She looked around, her eyes encompassing the small room, but meaning the whole place.

  “Here, I’m trying to make a difference.”

  Grant stirred beside her and Marie turned toward him. “She’s a doctor and an expert in radiation,” he explained. “Thanks to her, the whole recycling center is safer now. Before, people suffered permanent damage after working here because nobody knew anything about safety procedures and maximum time of exposure. Even the structure has been modified under her surveillance.”

  She couldn’t believe a pure breed had done something for the betterment of fathered women and even men. But Grant was talking to her, looking in good health, when she had prepared herself to mourn his imminent death. And she wasn’t anywhere close to the inner chamber. “So who works inside the inner chamber?”

  “We all take turns of a few hours every month, but we go inside heavily shielded,” Corinthia answered.

  “What about him? Did he stay ten days as I was told?” She also remembered the bit about him not wearing any protection.

  “Oh, no. We only let the soldiers think he was inside the whole time, but we had him in and out every few hours. Still, we had to keep the charade going longer than we were comfortable.”

  “But this friend of mine—”

  “Nora,” Grant supplied.

  “Yes, her. She told me you were there for ten days without protection and I thought you were dying and—” She had to fight the urge to caress his face and make sure he was okay and her eyes weren’t betraying her.

  “We try not to let our secrets out. People who come here for their shift normally leave without being the wiser of what we do. Your friend didn’t need to know, but instead, her words will corroborate what Callista, and through her, Ginecea, need to know,” Corinthia explained.

  Grant applied pressure on Marie’s hand and commanded her attention. “Did you do what you did to be sent here?” His eyes were stormy.

  Marie didn’t answer right away.

  Grant took both of her hands in his, his expression so serious she
had to avert her gaze. “Marie?” He released one of her hands to raise her chin with a soft caress and force her to look at him. “Did you try to kill that woman, hoping you would be sent here?”

  Her prolonged silence was answer enough for him. “You did it… for me?” His voice lowered on the last two words and then he shook his head, his eyes big and liquid. “You shouldn’t have.”

  The last sentence cut a deep gash in Marie’s heart. Not the words. Anybody would have said that, should have said that to her. Especially him. No, it was the tone. “I thought you were dying. I had to see you. I had to tell you…” She hadn’t forgotten they weren’t alone and sighed in frustration. “Things.”

  Grant shook his head one more time. Sadness in his eyes, he muttered something under his breath she didn’t catch, and then out loud, “I’m leaving. Tonight.”

  She might have heard something else. “You’re leaving?”

  Grant nodded and bit his already-chapped bottom lip. “You shouldn’t have risked your life for me. Anything could’ve gone wrong. Callista could’ve let you die under the whip. She could’ve court-martialed you and shot you on the spot.”

  She felt the sting of tears, but she didn’t let them out. “But I’m here. It worked.”

  He raised one hand. “Yes, it worked, and if it weren’t for Luna and Corinthia, you would’ve died of radiation exposure in less than ten days. It was senseless.” He suddenly stood and stormed out, leaving her with a hole right in the middle of her ribcage.

  16

  Marie didn’t look down, but if the tearing pain in her heart was of any indication, she was bleeding from it. She still managed not to cry before the two women. “It worked,” she repeated instead.

  “Sweetie, I’m sorry to say it, but he’s right. You gambled with your life without knowing what would happen.” Corinthia walked to the bed and sat on the edge.

  She looked ahead in the direction he had disappeared. “I had to see him.”

  “Oh, I can understand that…” Luna smiled softly.

  Marie heard the “but” that was left unsaid. “Why’s he so angry at me?”

  “Because he got scared for you and he’s mostly angry at himself.” Luna took the place Grant had just vacated. “He was supposed to leave three days ago when you arrived.”

  Corinthia walked closer to the bed’s edge and stopped behind Luna. “But he hasn’t left your side.”

  “He wanted to see you before leaving tonight and was going crazy because you weren’t waking up, but he can’t stay any longer.” Luna patted Marie’s arm.

  Marie looked first at Luna and then at Corinthia. “Where is he going?”

  Corinthia lowered one hand on Luna’s shoulder. “Where it’s safe for a man.”

  “Is there such a place outside of Vasura?” Or what Vasura had been before Callista had destroyed its peace. Marie wanted to scream.

  Corinthia waited for Luna to raise her eyes to her and nod, before answering, “We’ve a network of helpful contacts outside of Vasura—”

  “You mean the farms?”

  Luna squeezed Corinthia’s hand and continued for her. “No, we have contacts within the men’s community as well…”

  Marie was truly confused. “Your contacts are workers? But what can they do for you?”

  Luna seemed to think of her answer for a moment. “Well, they aren’t workers.”

  At the assumption that Luna was trying to explain to her they had help from sementals, Marie almost didn’t hear the woman’s next words.

  “They live outside in the desert. They’re free men.”

  At which Marie snorted. “Sorry, but for a moment I thought you were serious.” Then the expression on both Luna’s and Corinthia’s faces made her rectify her previous statement. “You are serious.”

  Corinthia nodded. “Two days north of Vasura, deep in the desert, men have been building a city for more than two decades.”

  “How do you know this city even exists?” Marie wanted to know how it was possible that Ginecea hadn’t found them and squashed them under its heels, but questions were crowding her mind and this one won the race for supremacy over the others.

  Corinthia left her spot behind Luna and sat on the edge of the bed. “During the Massacre ten years ago, when the mass executions started, a few men and women managed to escape from Vasura and went into hiding in the desert.”

  “They thought they could survive in the desert?”

  Luna raised an eyebrow, but her words were gentle. “Desperation makes you act without thinking.”

  Marie blushed at the remark.

  “And it beats waiting to be killed lined up against a wall.” Corinthia’s eyes went far away. “You don’t know what it was like back then. I still have nightmares. I would’ve left too. Anything was better than the horror we had to witness.”

  But Marie knew. She could still hear the kids screaming for their mothers. If she closed her eyes, she could see Rachele falling on the ground, dying without a reason. “Why didn’t you?”

  A grin appeared on Corinthia’s face. “I was wounded. The night I should’ve left, I got shot in my right leg and brought to the infirmary where I was sedated by a good-meaning doctor who thought she was doing me a favor. I punched her in the face as soon as I woke the next morning.” She tilted her head to give Luna a sideways glance and her lips turned up in a smile. “It turns out, the doctor did me a favor by not allowing me to leave.” Some silent conversation happened between the two of them. Then Corinthia focused her attention on Marie once again. “Anyway, to answer your question on how we know the city exists, some of the people who escaped—unfortunately, not everybody made it—found an outpost of free men. Months later, they contacted Vasura to let their families and friends know they were alive. Since then, a communication bridge has been established with the City of Men—”

  “That’s what it’s called?”

  “Yes, that is what they called it,” Luna answered.

  “So, all this time, you helped men escaping to the City of Men?” Marie still couldn’t believe a whole outpost of ex-workers could go undetected for so long.

  “Actually, no.”

  It was Marie’s turn to raise her eyebrow in puzzlement.

  “Apart from that group of men and women, nobody has left Vasura in ten years.”

  “But if there was a chance to be free, why wouldn’t the men take it?”

  “Because, as you rightly said just a few minutes ago, Vasura is the only place on Ginecea where a man can be relatively free to do whatever he wants, even live with a woman and have kids. Pure breeds regard waste plants with such disdain we’re left alone and without any supervision for long stretches of time. This is a safe haven—”

  “Until Callistas happen.”

  “Yes, until Callistas happen…”

  “But we still can do something. We can still resist and save lives without her being the wiser.”

  “You’re smuggling out all the men she has sent to die in the inner chamber…”

  “She knows they can’t survive the radiation—”

  “Callista knows about the radiation?”

  “Of course she does. Ginecea replaced the coal plant with a nuclear one because it was cheaper to process the waste that way. We had been sent here to die anyway. No need to make the place safer for its workers. We deserved a short and horrible existence.” Corinthia breathed and then added, “But I’m digressing. Supervisors are warned not to go near the recycling center proper because of the radiation.”

  Luna nodded. “It’s true. I knew before I came here, but I wanted to take a look myself and was shocked when I found the conditions people were forced to work in. It wasn’t humane. It made me rethink everything I believed was true about pure breeds. I was ashamed to be one of them.”

  A long silence followed Luna’s words. Corinthia covered one of her hands with hers. Marie longed for Grant. “So you’ll declare Grant dead and he’ll be free to start a new life outside of Ginecea’s ru
les.” A sour-sweet feeling possessed her.

  “He officially died a few days ago, but again, he refused to leave before you woke.”

  “It’s imperative he leaves tonight.” Corinthia said the words, but they were both looking at her.

  “You think I’d ask him to stay? I’d never do anything to put him in any danger.” She realized she had raised her voice, but their expressions said they doubted that and she was offended. She was also angry because deep inside she knew they were right. She wanted Grant with her and felt guilty. “I want him alive.” And that too was true. “When is he going to leave?”

  “As soon as it gets dark. Tonight, it’s new moon and it’ll be safe for him to cross the wall.” Luna looked at her wristwatch. “Later, we’ll talk about your future, but I must go and take care of a few details to ensure nothing goes wrong.” She stood with a sigh.

  “Sure…” Marie sat upright and looked at Luna exiting the room.

  “Is there anything else you want to know?” Corinthia asked from the curtain. She was leaving too.

  She had several questions, but the immediate future was more important at the moment. “Where is he?” She swung her legs off the side of the bed and then looked for her shoes, but they weren’t on the floor.

  “Do you think it’s okay if she goes to talk to him?” Corinthia turned to Luna, out of Marie’s sight, but evidently still close. “She just woke.”

  Luna retraced her steps and spoke directly to Marie. “You should take it easy… but yes, of course.”

  “Then, since the doctor is okay with it, I’ll get you a change of clothes and a pair of sandals.” Corinthia hurriedly left.

  Luna stayed behind, an uncertain expression on her face. “Love can be painful. Especially at your age.” She gave Marie a soft caress on her arm. “I wish I could give you a pill for this… but there’s none.”

  Corinthia’s voice reached them from a few steps away. “I couldn’t find your size, but hopefully this is close enough.” She entered the room, her arms outstretched, carrying a pile of folded clothes and a pair of sandals on top of it. “He’s pacing outside.”