“Hers? Not that. It can’t be,” Felix said to the woman with nervous energy.
“How do you know what this is?” she replied, with derision.
“You ladies wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” His sarcastic laugh didn’t amuse the woman.
She didn’t even have to speak, but he replied to her impatient look. “Okay, keep your skirt on. We used those sticks as lights during construction projects. You have to shake ‘em, but they work great for it.”
The woman’s left eyebrow raised in doubt.
“The little girl next door said it’s a staff,” he said in a tired voice. “We used them to amuse ourselves.”
“That sounds more like what your kind would do with this,” she said with confidence.
The trio moved as a group to stand in front of me. The young women on the sides reminded me of my female classmates. They didn’t appear much older than me. They both had very dark hair, but one was curly while the other was spiky and short. I recognized the spiky-haired girl as the one who chased me down.
The woman in the middle was tall. She had to be every bit of six feet, though her boots may have added a couple inches. I met her bright green eyes, but couldn’t hold them. I fought the urge to bow, but it was programmed in me.
“I am Sister Xandrie. This is Sister Felicity—she nodded to the spiky-haired girl—and Sister Patience.”
The pair bowed to me, though Xandrie held her neck ramrod straight until her helpers stood back up. Then she tilted her head a fraction of an inch.
“And you are called?”
I’d just spilled my life’s story to the voice in the next chamber, but now I thought about how I should have come up with a story about who I was and what I was doing snooping inside their home. Nothing came to mind in those few seconds; Alex would have been perfect for such fakery.
“Her name is Elle,” Felix tattled.
Xandrie didn’t look at Felix, but she spoke to him. “Talk again, loner, and you’ll regret it.”
She’d never taken her eyes from me. I met her gaze for an instant, but looked away. Much as with the Commander, I just didn’t have the ability to maintain such a powerful glare.
“Sister Elle? I have many questions for you. Some of which I cannot ask in his presence. You will walk with me to my chambers. Then we will get to the bottom of this security breach.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was in here. We found this place by accident.”
“We?”
Oh, Elle. My inner voice sat heavily in her chair, defeated.
“I mean me. There’s only me.”
A crack of a smile appeared on Xandrie’s face. “Felix, my dearest, is she telling the truth?”
Felix didn’t respond right away. Her grin disappeared before he finally answered.
“She said nothing about being with additional sisters.”
“Well then, nothing to worry about, is there?” She clapped her hands together and smiled. It seemed real.
“Let’s get you out of there, before this man infects your brain with his nonsense.”
All three of the Sisters giggled. I smiled to be polite, though I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel. Felix had just lied for me.
3
The three women stood back as I came through the door of my cell. Xandrie still held my staff in front of her, but there was no offer for me to reclaim it. I was out of the cell, but still a prisoner.
“We’re going this way,” Xandrie nodded to my right, away from Felix. I tried to get a look at him, but the women were standing in such a way to prevent me from going that direction.
“So long, Felix,” I said in a friendly voice. It seemed proper.
He didn’t reply.
I began my walk but halted after only a few steps.
A young woman was in the cell on the other side of me, though she’d said nothing the whole time I was there. She was dressed in white sheets. Her golden hair was down to her waist, and she had no braid like the others.
Though the lights were lower in there, I got a good look at her surroundings.
Her cell was filled with decorations and creature comforts like a real bed and a plush-looking chair. Colored paper had been hung from the wall in several places and a thick rug protected her bare feet. A small desk and wooden chair had been crammed into the back corner.
Yet the only thing my eyes could see, once I saw it, was the girl’s belly.
“Ah, please don’t linger, Sister Elle,” Xandrie said, though with a definite tone of uncertainty.
I stopped.
Xandrie sighed. The woman inside smiled. Her round face and bright eyes made her seem to glow in the darkened chamber.
“This is Scarlett.” She waved her hand at the girl. “Scarlett, say hello.”
“Hi,” she said, with a friendly wave.
I’d begun to catch on. The girl was the same age as the young women with Xandrie. Maybe younger, in fact. She’d be one of the younger girls in my class back at the Complex. But there was no denying she was carrying a baby.
I felt my own belly in sympathy.
“It’s okay,” Scarlett began. “I’m happy to meet you. I don’t get any visitors down here.”
“They keep you in here?”
She nodded yes.
“Sister Xandrie takes care of me. I don’t mind. Soon I’ll have my baby and I’ll have a friend.” Her smile showed an innocence I found scary. As much as I wanted to avoid having my own baby, she seemed excited for hers. How could something that important be seen with two such differing perspectives?
“I’m glad,” I said, not sure what I meant with the response.
“Good to see you, Scarlett. I’m afraid we must move along,” Xandrie said in a businesslike voice.
I turned to go, but couldn’t leave without asking one critical question.
“How long have you been pregnant?”
“How long?” she replied, with a little bit of a distant tone.
“Yeah, it takes—” I bit my lip as I thought of an answer on the fly. I vaguely recalled the number I sought, but I wasn’t positive. I didn’t want to look too dumb. “Nine months, I think.”
Scarlett thought on it, but turned to Xandrie before she answered me.
“Sister? Am I almost done?”
“You are getting there, wonderful Scarlett. You are so very close, now.”
I watched the young girl’s face brighten back up.
“Then I’m close to nine months!” She had a tooth missing in an otherwise perfect smile.
“That’s right,” Xandrie agreed, giving me a little shove.
“Okay, good luck,” I said, as we left her.
“You, too!” she said as she waddled to the bars and waved to me through the opening.
I walked away feeling uncertain what I’d just witnessed. I wanted to ask questions but Xandrie sped off in front of me, while the two girls gently prodded me to keep moving. I’d already forgotten their names. That wasn’t a side-effect of the drugs in the Scotch. I’d always been bad at that.
A real memory?
I thought back to the two elderly women I’d seen from above. Their names were—
I’d forgotten them.
The replay in my head showed spiky-hair girl and curly-hair girl standing next to Xandrie. They were Sister-somethings.
I struggled as we walked to the end of the jail hallway. The seven or eight other cells down the row beyond Scarlett were empty.
I tried to tricky myself into saying a name.
Sister—
Ugg.
I hated forgetting. Every memory and new experience needed to be cultivated and cataloged so it would never be forgotten. I couldn’t afford to forget anything else in my life.
Xandrie opened the heavy metal door at the end of the hallway with a big push.
“Sister Patience, please lock up,” she said without looking back.
Patience!
A skill I didn’t have. I could admit it.
Besides, I told myself, that would help me remember the guard’s name.
“Question: Who is she?”
“Answer: A skill you lack.”
Patience!
I giggled as we emerged in a hallway that was a mirror of the one back home.
“This has to be a cock-up.”
“What is it, Sister Elle?”
I thought about telling her the quarter-mile long hallway was exactly like the one back home, but I protected that memory from her. But I had to give her something. And that wasn’t difficult, either, it turned out.
“I’ve never seen so many—”
Where the Complex’s Standing Quarter was filled with tired and worn workers and endless processions of mechanical Mules and motorbikes—not to mention pools of water—this space was filled with happy young women dressed just like Xandrie and her escorts.
Many pulled carts with two large wheels, though they were all covered with small tarps. The floor was covered with metal planks; the wheels clanked softly. I couldn’t see any water on the floor. Back in the Complex, when Mr. Bracken made us run the Outer Circle as punishment or for exercise, I would have killed to run six miles on dry metal rather than murky puddles.
The white skirts floated in both directions.
“So many women,” I said, finishing my thought.
Xandrie looked toward their version of the Great Hall with pride. “It’s perfection, don’t you think?”
I was tongue-tied. It wasn’t bad and it wasn’t good. Living in the Complex with only the women would solve some problems, but how many would it have created? How much would I have lost?
My thoughts turned to Alex. He and Wen had to be getting nervous they’d not heard from me. Would they come in and chase me down, or walk away and search for the Commander without me? Which choice would I have made?
A woman strode next to Xandrie and whispered in her ear. I couldn’t hear what was said, but the newcomer made me appreciate the similarities of all those now passing us by.
Besides the uniforms, all the girls had the same thin ponytails of varying lengths. Many wore theirs around their necks, suggesting they were very long. A few let them dangle down their backs, often below their hips.
Xandrie’s ponytail was the same bright red as the rest of her hair, and it appeared to be wrapped many times around her neck. I couldn’t help think it was a symbol of her power. Or something like that.
“We’re going that way,” Xandrie said to us. She walked off in that direction, spreading the sea of dresses as she moved.
“Where are we going, Sister Felicity?” I used her name to help beat it into my memory.
“Wherever she commands,” she replied, as if it was a well-known truth.
Inwardly, I sighed. She was far from the Commander, but I appeared to be going in the wrong direction from helping my own people.
Left with no alternative, I followed.
4
I was flap-jacked when we walked into the Great Hall. It was similar in shape to the Complex. It had six sides but was longer to the left and right than our version. The front wall was rocky and uneven, but as far as I could tell wasn’t being used as a climbing wall.
The cafeteria was on the right.
The dorms—if they were used as dorms—were on the left.
The biggest immediate difference was the holographic projectors. The high walls of the great cavern were brightly lit and gave the illusion of a walkway linked to the edges of the floor on the right side. Fake women, dressed exactly as the women around me, walked back and forth toward a structure sticking out of the ground. Mountains lined the horizon in the display, and a babbling creek surrounded the doorway to the cafeteria.
“What is that?” I said, pointing to the pointy-topped structure in the living hologram.
“That is the Monastery of Saint Benevolence,” Xandrie said with reverence and a slight bow. “Our guiding light in this dark time.”
The monastery was made of white stone, and if I got the perspective right it was huge. The women walked a path up a pleasant wooded hillside and were tiny dots when they passed through a large wooden gate that had to be a front door.
“What are they doing?” I asked. The girls and women walked with folded hands and bowed heads, though they carried satchels or wore backpacks.
“Meditating,” Xandrie replied. “We all meditate to keep our balance. As our duty during the Remainder of Time, we come to the Cathedral to pray and lead calming sessions, then we go do our work until we repeat it on the next shift.”
“You mean day? The start and end of your day?”
Xandrie looked at me, then raked her eyes over my dirty clothes. She showed nothing but distaste for what she saw.
“Please come with me. We can’t have you in here for too long as it may disrupt my girls.”
I didn’t think that was true, as the women walked past us without so much as a look. Yet, as I studied those farther away, they watched me with great care not to be noticed. None would make eye contact with me. It was like I was their leader.
Head out of the clouds, girl.
Okay, I was with their leader. That’s probably the more likely reason. They didn’t know what to make of me, but being with Xandrie counted for everything. I needed to keep that in mind.
We walked through a double chambered doorway, just as I’d done to get into the Commander’s chambers. Xandrie, Patience, and Felicity. I finally had them all straight. I rode that high as we walked up the incline as the tunnel went around a central piece like a spiral. We even passed the section of tunnel where, in that duplicate back home, I threw up the Scotch onto the ground. I softly giggled when I made the connection. It was the only tiny victory I’d had over the Commander.
So far.
Yeah, so far.
Her door was made of metal, same as the Commander’s, but their offices couldn’t have been more different. As I walked in I was greeted with head-spinning aroma that reminded me of grandma’s apple pies.
Where did that come from?
“Please, sit down,” Xandrie said, pointing me to a colorful sofa. I fought to keep from zigzagging under the weight of the memorable smells. Yet I drew those scents in as if they would soon run out.
“The smell is wonderful,” I remarked.
Xandrie tossed my staff against the wall behind the hinges of her door, then joined me.
“The perks of leadership,” was all she said.
I sat as instructed. I was very pleased she chose to sit in a smaller wooden chair with similar-colored cushions. We had several feet between us.
The windows to the outside were the same as back in their Great Hall, except the view was of the monastery from slightly above it. Having been outside I knew the hologram was fake, but it wasn’t clear to me yet if she did.
“What do you think of my humble home?” She spoke in a friendly tone and with less pomp.
I drank it all in, absently aware that—exactly like the Commander—she sent her two assistants back through the main door. The soft colors of the furniture complimented the happy scene in the windows and the whole chamber was bright and cheery. Xandrie had a white desk with a glass top and a few other small tables and chairs set up around it. The carpet was brownish-gray and a little worn where people had walked in certain paths. It was the only thing that didn’t seem fresh and vibrant.
“I actually really love it,” I said, meaning it. “It makes me feel—young again.”
“Excellent,” she replied, clapping her hands together a few times. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had visitors. I didn’t have any time to prepare.”
“Oh, no, really. That’s not necessary,” I said while scooting to the front edge of the sofa cushion. “I’m a no one.”
“Nonsense. You have some items that make you a someone,” she said with enthusiasm. She pulled out Mr. Bracken’s Oxy Card, which she’d found in my hip pack. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching into the empty bag to confirm all my things had
been taken.
“You’ll get them back, don’t worry. But I’m curious about this.” She held up the card.
“I’m not sure what you mean?”
She waved it some more, as if that would help. Eventually she pointed to it. “Do you know what this is? It is intelligence. It can hold a clue to understanding the differences between your tribe and mine. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“Um, sure. But you can read it, same as me.”
She flicked it open to the last page. The one that was just white plastic. Then she tapped it near the upper left corner and a light came on from inside the material.
“That dirty—”
“What? What is this?”
Mr. Bracken failed to tell me about his computer-y part of his book. Now I’d just given it away to a stranger.
“I’m, uh, not sure what that is. I didn’t know it lit up.”
“This isn’t a flashlight, sister, this is data. See, here. Look.” She pointed again to the sheet and it had a screen with a white box flashing. “It needs your password and we can get in. Don’t you want to know what it says?”
Very much so, I thought.
“I really don’t know. I swear that’s the truth.”
I could tell she wasn’t happy but she was interrupted by a red flashing light on the arm of her chair. I’d not noticed it before.
Xandrie leaned over a little and spoke with impatience to the light. “Go ahead.”
“Sister Valerie is here,” said a voice coming from near the light.
“Send her in,” she said in a simple reply.
“You’ll have to excuse me. Business never stops for the boss, you know?”
I nodded, not really sure what was going on.
“Here, take your book. If you get in, what do you say you give me a peek?” She smiled, though her green eyes were like two little snakes sizing up a meal.
I reached for it, but she didn’t let it go right away. “Thank you,” I said, trying to help her along. She finally did let it go, but her eyes followed it all the way back into my hip bag.
A quiet rapping at the door interrupted our exchange.
Xandrie stood to greet her guest. I stood as well, figuring that was polite. Her two helpers brought in a third woman, dressed like the rest of them—except for her skirt. It was filthy.
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