At the top they placed their stones into the wall of a mist-shrouded castle.
On the way down they fought with each other to get the best views of cheery-dressed women and children off to one side. It was unclear if they were spectators watching the show or were prizes to be won by the men. The men seemed to be drawn downhill by such trickery until they were back in the fire.
It was the most vile sight I’d ever witnessed.
But the worst part was looking back at the Saints on their side of the digital tapestry. I’d not noticed it before because it didn’t seem important, but the women were carrying rocks, too. They were coming from the pristine monastery on the hill carrying the same rocks as the men. However, they didn’t strain in the least. Some carried it under their arms or in tasteful handbags or backpacks. None of them were struggling under the weight.
At the bottom of their hill they carelessly tossed each rock into a clear mountain lake and began back up the hill, chatting in silence with each other. The area between the two scenes was blank, but I could imagine the same lake stretching from one side to the other. The misty castle on one side had to be the backside of the regal castle on the other.
“No. This is impossible. These aren’t real people, are they?”
Xandrie strode closer. “Yes, child. The good have gone up the path. The bad have gone down.”
I felt Alex pull me next to him, which I allowed because I was scared for him.
“But all those men couldn’t have been bad. Surely all those women weren’t, uh, good?”
It didn’t seem like a deft comparison, but I didn’t know how else to phrase it. I thought it was self-evident.
She rose to the platform and stood next to me, though she spoke to the sisters in the audience.
“We have done this since the first second of the Remainder. I have kept order and kept you, my sisters, from all evil. We made the hardest decisions early—we got rid of those men,” she pointed to the tortured souls walking from the lake of fire, “and made way for a perfect society of perfect beings.”
“But Alex is innocent. He’s my friend. He’s—”
“I’m her boyfriend,” he shouted. Then he smiled, speaking only to me. “Will you give me this one?”
“He and I have a … relationship.”
“Yeah, take that!” Alex shouted. “I’m practically one of you.”
“Ha! You and your kind ended the world. Then your kind came running into our happy bunker and took whatever you wanted. This was to be our refuge. The nuns of the Order of Saint Benevolence. The government granted us this safe space, but your kind got in before we could seal it shut. You pretended we were treasures to be plundered in the no-rules apocalypse of human society. What else could we do?”
“Uh, it wasn’t actually me back then,” Alex said. “And you kick out the bad guys. Save the good guys. No matter what sex they are.”
Xandrie pulled out her knife and thrust it right up to Alex’s throat. “Those men on that wall were all bad guys. I was there. I know.”
“Back off, sister.” I pointed my gun at her.
She glared at me. “How can you hope to stop me? We are beings of the Goddess, here.”
Clapping erupted from the crowd. “You tell her, Sister Xandrie.”
I thought back to something Felicity had told me on that first walk where she led me to that trap. As I watched her avoid the rocks with her white skirt she mentioned that she could have Xandrie deposed at any time she wanted. All she had to do was find a man to damage her skirt. It was the height of felonious conduct to be caught with a man, and even more so if that man destroyed the sacred skirt. I began to understand it wasn’t just idle talk. They had a deep-seated fear and hatred of the whole species of men.
“You can’t just kill a good man. You can’t,” I declared.
I stepped away from Alex and held up my gun.
She pulled back from Alex, too.
“I’ll think about your offer earlier. This all so overwhelming. Will you give me a minute to speak with my friend before you send him into the light?”
“Boyfriend,” Alex corrected.
I smiled, aware that he wasn’t helping.
Xandrie looked at me with angry eyes and pursed lips. I sensed Alex’s fate hung on her next words.
3
“Fine. Make it quick.” She stormed off and waved her helpers away, too.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when I had his ear to myself.
“I followed you in. I couldn’t let you go in all by yourself, you know.”
“You left Wen?”
“She’s a big girl. She was talking funny anyway.”
“Uh huh. So, what? You just guessed where I’d gone?”
“Yeah, something like that. I got into the ducts and wandered around for a long time. I saw you underneath me—just once—but you were with two other babes and I didn’t want to get myself turned in, yet.”
“So you finally let yourself get caught?”
“I got hungry. What can I say?”
“You have to get out of here. Wen is outside, and yes, something is wrong with her. I also found two new friends. They are at the dam, I hope. It’s controlled by Meg—a supercomputer from the Old Days.”
He smiled. “None of that makes any sense, but it was nice to hear your voice.”
“Dang it. I’m trying to save your life!”
“Look around, girlfriend. There are a hundred of them, and me. I’d normally love odds like this with so many girls, but that wall … ” It really didn’t need to be said, given the evil scene. I couldn’t let them put him in there.
“Are you ready?” Xandrie called from nearby. “Cuz I am.”
I leaned in like I was going to kiss him, then kept going to his ear. “You have to tear her skirt. That’s the only thing that can save you.”
Then I kissed him on the cheek, content to leave it at that. But he grabbed me and stole a kiss on my lips. I made no effort to escape, and actually enjoyed it for a moment before realizing all the eyes on me—and more than a few “oohs.” I pushed off gently.
“That was nice, Bells. For a first and last kiss.” He smiled like he’d won the lottery.
I smiled back.
“That’s typical. He takes what he wants,” Xandrie cautioned to her sisters. “This is why not one man can be tolerated in our perfectly balanced society.
“He took nothing that I didn’t willingly give,” I replied, angry she’d ruin my moment with him.
I got close to her and locked eyes with her. Alex drifted nearby. I didn’t care if he heard me or not.
“If you kill my friend I will do nothing for you. I won’t open your stupid doors. I won’t try to bring your elderly sisters back home.”
“That’s okay. I don’t need anything from you. It would have been nice to have your help, but I have plenty of sisters here. Some are almost as good as you. None are almost as good as me,” she smiled.
I touched the staff behind my head as it sat on my back. “You need this to power your little toy. I won’t give it to you.” I still had the gun in my other hand.
“No problem. We already have power to this unit.” She pointed to a replica of the “Icer” on the far side of the Great Hall.
I couldn’t help sound confused. “But I thought you didn’t have any power rods?”
“For that one, we didn’t. But this one still has the original power unit.”
I had no inclination to help her, but I did enjoy the thought of making her feel stupid. “If you had the power bar for this one, why didn’t you use it for the other one, too? You can move it back and forth, you know.”
“Typical. You think you understand us, but you’re as bad as he is. You come in and try to disrupt and overthrow. That’s how males think.”
“She is a bit of a tomboy,” Alex added from nearby.
Alex and I both shot him a glare, for different reasons.
“We don’t touch that power rod because it ha
s been in contact with detestable men. To use that power for our holy saints would be a sacrilege.”
“Hmm, that actually makes sense,” I said aloud.
“Hey,” Alex complained.
I laughed. Even Xandrie caught a snicker from the exchange, which was too much to ask.
I nodded to Alex.
I reached out and held Xandrie while he poked the knife out of her hand and into his like an expert at disarming opponents. She reflexively leaned away from us, but he had enough time to yank at her skirt and jab the blade in and tear downward—away from her legs.
“I put a hole in her holy skirt!” Alex laughed, tossing the blade to the metal floor of the platform.
“What the?” Xandrie backpedaled away from me and I had to let her go. Several sisters were in my face, pushing me back. It was complete chaos for thirty seconds. I was pushed against the wall with Alex, surrounded by knife-wielding sisters.
“A man has desecrated Sister Xandrie’s skirt. Your rules dictate she must be punished. She has already avoided your Icer once. You must enforce her rules now.”
For a long moment I thought I’d failed. It wasn’t like they were anxious to help me. But soon mumbles of agreement sounded from the women nearest me. They were reluctant but admitted it was Xandrie’s own rules forcing their hands. They didn’t want to break the rules in her presence.
“No! You can’t. This wasn’t my fault. That rule was intended to protect the sisters from men who would do violence to them. It made them avoid men completely. It worked perfectly!”
That explained a lot to me, but her plea wasn’t to me. I saw lots of talking and head shaking among the sisters.
“You just can’t,” she pleaded. “I just got back in!”
Xandrie stormed over and stood among those keeping guard on us. She went right to Alex. “If I’m sent into that machine I’m going to enjoy killing you as the last thing I do.”
I raised my pistol, glad it hadn’t been taken from me in the commotion. I’d kept my hand practically hidden next to my hip bag, which probably kept it out of their immediate view.
“If you touch him, I’ll kill you.”
She pointed to my gun and laughed. “With that? Go ahead. Shoot me.”
“I will, don’t make me.” I did my best to push Alex along the wall, hoping the gun would serve its purpose in deterring any response. But the women didn’t let us through.
“Shoot. Strike me dead, if you can.”
The gun shook in my hand. It wasn’t overly heavy, but the weight of my decision was already spooking me.
“I—”
“Shoot her, Bells, take her up on her offer. It’s her or us.”
“Always with violence,” Xandrie said with sadness. “That’s why he must die.”
Louder, she continued, “He is violence incarnate, my sisters. This is why the rules were written. To keep you away from men like this. He attacked me. You saw it happen. I did not seek to consort with his kind.”
She was winning.
I raised my gun at her face, then raised it over her head and pulled the trigger. My deepest desire was to send everyone running so Alex and I had room to run.
But squeezing the trigger did nothing. No noise. No shot. No nothing.
I pointed straight up and squeezed the trigger several more times. Everyone around me squinted as if it was going to go off—but it refused to register a blast.
Xandrie’s humor was gone. “You two have a lot in common. So much violence. But I wear an Infinity Field. You’d need to be across the Great Hall to fire that gun at me. This thing dampens the chemical reaction inside your ammunition. One of the many fun tools devised by our creators to ensure peace and tranquility here.
I dropped the gun into my hip bag.
Xandrie spread her arms and bellowed out to her tribe. “Surely, my sisters, you can’t blame me for the undoubted evil of these intruders. She tricked me into a forced ascension the first time, and it was she again who was responsible for him being here. I should not be held accountable.”
The sisters mumbled in discussion and this time I saw just as many nods as head shakes. There was no way I was going to let them kill Alex without a fight. Even a verbal one.
4
“Sisters. Where I come from the leader is held accountable for all the actions of her people.” I didn’t want to remind them I was chasing our tribe’s leader—a man. And I didn’t know our new leader—a woman—long enough to know if my words applied to her. “But I do know that if the rules don’t apply to everyone equally it is always the followers who get kicked in the goolies.”
They looked at me with confusion, though Alex chuckled. It was another word he taught me, though I'd come to accept much of what he said was made up.
“Um, it means getting screwed over. Taken advantage of by your leader. And the tunnel I saw on the way in was filled with treasures that Xandrie has denied to you. Go check it out. See what’s been stolen from you. If I’m a liar I’ll walk into that blue icy thing without hesitation. On the men’s side.”
That put fear into the faces of the sisters, as I’d hoped. Even Xandrie flinched as if I’d taken it too far.
“No,” she began with a frog in her voice. “No! This cannot be allowed. This—this so-called sister is abusing our hospitality. Insulting our faith. Insulting you!”
“You did it, Bells. You finally pissed her off.” Alex snickered, but it was fatalistic. “At least we’ll be together.”
The crowd was getting almost too rambunctious to speak over, so I had to shout at first.
“The hallway is near!”
They settled.
“The hallway with the treasures is very near. It is attached to sister Xandrie’s chambers. It’s not hard to find, if you are willing to look.”
My chest swelled in pride as I was sure they were going to run and check out my story, but they didn’t rush to my request.
“Don’t you want to know the truth?” I asked, with less confidence.
Xandrie laughed.
“Who here wants to know the burden of leadership? Who wants to know the dirt and filth a leader must endure to ensure you all stay clean?” She hefted the hem of her skirt where it was torn as evidence.
“Since the Remainder began, an endless sea of minutes ago, I have kept the oily grime of evil from your presence. But, yes, in doing so I became dirty. My skirt has become torn. I suffered as much as the lowly supplicant on the wall of ascendancy above us all. And I did it all for you.”
Not surprisingly, that got more nods from the sisters.
Xandrie maintained her pressure. “I surrender myself to your will, sisters. I avoided ascending before, for the reasons I’ve just explained. Before you decide my fate, please allow me the honor of ridding you of this violent and dangerous woman, and the violent man she came back to rescue.”
I heard the words but blushed at the suggestion this was about Alex.
I caught him smiling broadly.
“That’s not why I came back,” I lied.
But I felt the glow of pride that I would sacrifice myself for him. If I had to die to keep him off that wall of pain and suffering, it will have been a good trade.
“I challenge Sister Xandrie to combat! We’ll see which of us is telling the truth.”
“Well played, L. You’ve just volunteered for Thunderdome.”
“For what?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Xandrie replied in her soothing voice. “My sisters and I have one of Meg’s projects that sits beneath our holy ground. She gave it to us as the Remainder began, and we added to it ever since.”
“Meg is involved in your bunker?”
“She’s involved in everything. But in a good way,” Xandrie added.
“She didn’t seem very good to me. I’d almost say she had an agenda of her own.”
“Her goal is to keep humanity alive. I don’t ask questions about how she does it.”
I reflected on my interaction with the
computer and didn’t share the unbridled optimism. She may have kept the dam safe for all the decades since things broken down in the wider world, but she couldn’t have been involved in all the madness caused by the Commander. If she’d known—
I snapped my fingers. “Did she know the Commander was using poison gas on his own people? Did she know he was wasting resources to build a huge machine instead of helping us? Did she know he experimented on us? Killed us? Made us run and jump through hoops while he watched?”
The murders were terrible and smacked of an evil man, but somehow it was the last part that upset me the most. That he would take pleasure in watching us die for his own entertainment. It made him a bigger-than-life monster to me.
I looked at Xandrie, wondering if I had it all put together. “Did you know about those things?”
She smiled and spoke so only Alex and I could easily hear. “The council met many times in that central room. He told us much, though never about the elderly sisters. Even when we weren’t all there together we could read reports from other leaders. We shared that intel so we could learn from each other’s mistakes.”
“He sent you the tapes,” I said dryly.
“Elle, you have no idea how necessary it is to distract people when there is no entertainment. We decided as a council to avoid providing books, wherever possible. Even ‘the good book’ wasn’t allowed as it contains many of the most subversive thoughts: free will and rebellion, especially. Neither of those are constructive when you’re trying to hold life itself together.”
“So you watched my people die?”
“Don’t look at it like that. Some of your people were going to die anyway. That was always going to happen once the bunker doors closed. They were supposed to be replaced by younger people, but things got weird when no one aged properly. No one had babies, either. No one.”
“Except Scarlett. Sort of.” I wasn’t sure if carrying a baby for 87 years was heroic or a hefty prison sentence.
“And we took care of that little anomaly, didn’t we?” Xandrie smiled without mirth.
I sighed, tiring of the discussion. I was anxious to get it all over with. “So what did you do to provide entertainment for the other bunkers? That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Doing each other favors?”
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