Even he knows his explanation falls short.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ethan
“So I talked to her that night. What’s the big deal? She couldn’t find her slimeball boyfriend or best friend, and I helped her out.” I pace the floor of the scaled down administration building. She’d been less than fifty feet away and recognized me, and my father refused to let me talk to her. He ushered me away and then went out to scare her off. For two months, I’ve felt like a freaking peeping Tom, watching her from afar, banned from getting anywhere near her. The only time I’d been allowed in spitting distance was upon her arrival when they drugged her, and I’d been asked to transport her to her room.
“Your orders were clear. Observe only,” my father says. “She says the two of you talked ‘for a long time.’ That’s a far cry from observation.”
“For years you searched for the perfect female specimen to Cleave to me. You find a pure Light, send me to watch her, and expect me not to see for myself whether she’s cleavable material?” I respond. “What better way to observe than to have a conversation? I don’t remember you specifying that I couldn’t talk to her.” What does he expect from a law student? I’m hard-wired to find loopholes.
“I told you there was competition. The Grand Council voted to partner the two of them and see how things progressed given Blake’s clean health record.”
I run my hands through my hair. All my life, I’ve listened to my parents complain ad nauseum about my heart defect. Even though I have a completely clean bill of health now, it still haunts me, and if Kira ends up with Blake, it always will. “I’m not okay with this. I plan to talk to Dr. Christo and see what the real odds are for my heart defect being passed along. All I want is a shot…to date her and see where things go.”
“Patience…I have a plan. And you’re an integral part. I’ve got a way to satisfy the Ten’s desires for the girl and make sure you fulfill your destiny. If you go screw it up by pursuing the girl, then the Grand Council will know we’re making a play. We are but can’t let them know we are.”
“I don’t want anything forced on her. Not Blake. Not me.”
“It’s not up to you. Or even up to me. Remember that we all answer to someone. Even the Council. And a purebred Light Original…well, she’s a game changer, Son. You’re just going to have to let it all play out. And, well, if it doesn’t work, your Uncle Henry can find you a suitable mate on Earth.”
Ethan’s college years
My Uncle Henry’s a well-known, well-liked politician with a bright future. Law degree. Wealthy. Extensive social circle. His life is one giant fundraiser. And Uncle Henry likes to show off his family. There are a lot of people who want to be in Uncle Henry’s good graces. A lot of obnoxious campaign donators with agendas. And they have sons and daughters. The sons get foisted on my cousins (Uncle Henry has two daughters, both older than me). The donors’ daughters, however, get flung my way. Uncle Henry brokers dates like he would business deals. If he wants Joe CEO to be his Next Big Donor, then Joe’s daughter is my next date to a critical fundraiser.
FBD (Fundraiser Blind Date) usually boils down to the following…on the physical side we’ve got bleach blonde, nose job, boob job, expensive clothes, even more expensive shoes, and corresponding purse. She’s usually fairly attractive if you go for the half human/half plastic thing which I don’t. On the personality side we have entitled, whiny, slutty, lazy, pushy, and downright annoying because they talk incessantly about absolutely nothing of importance. Once we go on our date to the critical fundraiser, FBD tries to blackmail me into a MBR (Mutually Beneficial Relationship) e.g. her daddy will make a huge donation to my Uncle if I agree to become her sex slave (or make her my sex slave, depending on the girl and her particular set of preferences).
When Jax visits, Uncle Henry arranges for the ultimate bimbo double dates. These, I actually enjoy. As annoying and meddling as I find Jax, he’s pure entertainment when placed around dumb and dumber barbies. They’re so charmed by his dimpled smile and double speak that they leave me alone and don’t even realize he’s insulting and demeaning them in every possible way. “You are so charitable, Mandy. The fabric saved on making your dress could clothe an entire orphanage. And as an added bonus, all the hard-up men here tonight won’t even have to spend money on porn tonight.” “Vivs, you’re a shoo-in for Miss America and for our future Secretary of State. Your idea to drop signed love notes and chocolate hearts instead of bombs throughout the Middle East and Africa would definitely get the attention of every misguided soul. I’m sure they’d want to become your BFF online and maybe even pay you a most personal visit.” Unfortunately, Jax pops by infrequently and thus, I have to endure most of my dates without his help.
Sarah was the most recent Uncle Henry Setup and she won the award for Owning Most Raincoats to Show Up at Door With Nothing On Under. And it hardly ever rained in San Diego. My Uncle forced me to take her to two separate events and she assumed that meant a marriage proposal was on the horizon. Holy freaking psycho, this girl made it her mission to try to seduce me. If I saw one more of her artificially enhanced body parts on display by text, email or in person, I would have gouged out my eyes with her high priced stilettos. I heard her talking once to a friend on the phone about “when he gets me pregnant, he’ll have to marry me.” For the first time in ages, I looked forward to leaving for a summer on Thera just to escape her.
Beth had a rare attribute that most of the others didn’t—a brain. She’d been studying to get her MBA and planned to be a CEO like her daddy (who was honestly named Joe). She thought we would make the perfect power couple. I didn’t hate her but wasn’t the least bit attracted to her, and, man, she bored me to death. Sure, it’s great you can use calculus to price stock options, but a decent dinner conversation that does not make.
Courtney creeped me out big time. She paid the photographer at Bigwig Local Fundraiser for all pictures taken of us separately and together and had a book made and delivered to me. She even used one of those photomerge baby makers to show me how lovely our 2.5 children would be (yes, she had a half a baby in our “family photo.”) Enough said.
Aliya believed in mixing alcohol and pharmaceutical drugs. She had major daddy issues and felt the best way to address said issues was to embarrass the heck out of daddy in public and, I do say, found great success in this endeavor. She once stripped down to a sheer corset, thong, and heels, and then table danced…very memorable for all in attendance, including the San Diego Police Department.
I’m sure there are lots of guys who’d have been thrilled to have girls throwing themselves at them. But nothing interested me less than abject desperation. And given that my father threatened early on to put a bullet in my brain if I had sex with any girl before he found me a “proper Cleave”…well, there wasn’t a whole lot these girls could offer.
Present
I will not let my Uncle Henry “find me a suitable mate.” I want to choose someone compatible. That’s why meeting Kira felt so different. She was naturally beautiful without any plastic parts. She was brilliant, funny, caring, loyal, flirty but not pushy, and sweet. I know that I did not imagine the connection with her, but there was no way I was going to act on it at the time. She had a boyfriend, and I was on assignment. She clearly didn’t have a great impression about the SCI after taking the Test, so I didn’t point out my ties to it.
Loopholes…there has to be a way around my father and the rest of the Ten on this. It’s just so unfair that this Blake guy’s been given unlimited access to her. The Ten even has them as partners and roommates. The Ten wants the two of them to Cleave? I wonder how Blake feels about permanent cohabitation with a girl he barely knows on this nightmare rock called Thera? Given I haven’t been banned from spending time with Blake, perhaps I should remind him about the consequences of getting too close to my Cleave interest?
It’s time to put myself back in the game.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Blake
&n
bsp; My head will freaking explode if they shove any more crap in it. There’s the propaganda, the Canon, the questions, stuff I learned about the city’s layout, and then there are the plans—mine to help my father, and the Theran rulers’ plans for Kira and me. I use my workouts to sort the data into the appropriate list and file it away because I know I’m going to need it all at some point to get out of this mess.
Masterminding the bogus relationship was genius and has given Kira and me time to try to sort the truths from the used car salesman spiel. Kira’s often able to spot the missing pixels from the picture better than I can, so I process data twice as fast with her around. The problem with my grand plan is that I sometimes find it hard to remember that our “relationship” is all for show. Touching her face and holding her hand has me feeling stuff I haven’t felt in a long time, distracting stuff that could lead to mistakes.
Kira has been staring at me the entire workout like I’m the sole food supply on a deserted island. It helps our cover I guess but kills my concentration. It’s not like we can act on the physical attraction to get it out of our system. We would end up Cleaved, and there’s no way I’m being saddled down with that baggage. So, I pretend to pull a muscle lifting and make the excuse that I’m going to go soak it off in the locker room whirlpool.
Once settled into the whirlpool’s water, I hike the jet and bubble action to max and relax for the first time in a week, though the feel of the water reminds me of our flash flood training. We only had ten minutes training before the flash flood exercise, and yet I got us out of danger as if I’d had years’ training. I hope they assumed my survival instinct kicked in and didn’t guess the truth which is that I experienced a horrifying and quite real flash flood when I was six.
Twelve years prior
My dad’s sulking took a lot of time. So after Doc Daryn’s Cleave gave us nightly school lessons, Leila and I played in the canyon until sunup when the heat forced us back into the cave. Leila ran up and down the hills, giggling wildly until her legs gave out. Or she rolled down barren patches of canyon that I helped my dad clear.
By the age of three, Leila had long dark hair like my mother, but she had my father’s hazel eyes. I must have gotten my bright green eyes from a more distant relative. We both had pale ivory skin which Leila tanned by way of a good dirt covering. This infuriated my father as baths wasted precious water reserves, so we often went weeks without a good washing. “You rolled in it, so you can sleep in it,” he would say to us.
There were no storm warning systems in the canyons. So we were told to stay close to home. One day though, Leila and I ventured farther into the canyon than normal with headlamps strapped to our heads.
It was dry one moment, and there was a torrential downpour the next. The hills turned to mud, sliding us towards a raging river at the bottom of the canyon. I yelled at Leila to grab my ankles. I reached for the branch of a bush, but it broke, and we kept sliding.
Cacti and brush along the riverbank kept us from sliding into the river. Neither Leila or I knew how to swim. Sharp thorns were embedded into my back, but that was preferable to drowning.
“Help,” I yelled, but the clatter of the storm overpowered my voice.
No one can hear. I must save us.
I pulled away from the cacti and searched for the familiar rope ladders that litter the canyons, hoping to find one nearby. The rain and mud—coming down with the force of a waterfall—obscured my view. I buried my hands into the nasty slop and dug around, starting to my left a few feet and working to the right. I continued to shift our location, staying in front of the brush until I gripped a familiar twined feel of the ladder.
Leila mounted my back, gripping my neck so tightly I could hardly breathe. I struggled to make progress up the ladder, one rung at a time.
The rain abated for a time, which slowed the rush of mud and water. We managed to ascend to a wide plateau, still well below and west of the caves that served as our home. I found us shelter below a rock outcropping where I intended to stay until the deluge ended.
Wet, muddy, and exhausted from the climb, I clutched Leila in my arms, and we waited it out. For what seemed like hours the downpour resumed, even past sunrise. And then, as quickly as it had started, it ended, and we dared step out into the sunlight to view the carnage.
Carcasses of dead lizards, bugs, and animals blanketed the landscape, including the one community milk cow. I circled the area to get my bearings, watching as the canyon fossilized into its new dried form. Everything looked different.
Knowing my father would be panicked, I used the sun to get a fix on our location and we traversed the plateau. Somehow we ended up more than a mile west of our caves. Finally, we scrambled up the hill to our home. The lookout team exclaimed shouts of relief upon seeing us. As Doc Daryn scrubbed us, removing thorns and hunting for wounds, my father gave his men instructions to round up the search party.
Later that morning, unable to sleep, I watched from the mouth of my cave as two lifeless bodies were carried up the hill, blue, bloated, and ravaged by fire ants and scorpions. The bodies belonged to men I’d known since birth and who had wives and children of their own. The entire community of Exilers mourned their loss. Both were found in the riverbed, drowned. I’m certain those men died trying to find and save Leila and me during the storm.
Whenever I question my loyalty to my father and his plan to save the Exilers and free the Second Chancers from oppression, I think of those two good men, and how they willingly put themselves in harms way for me.
Present
“Mr. Sundry,” I hear from a familiar voice, yanking me back to my more comfortable spa-like surroundings. “So good to see you. I’ve wanted to catch up with you and Ms. Donovan to see how you’re enjoying training. Mind if I join you?” It’s about time Ted made an appearance. He has some explaining to do, as I struggle to reengage and leave the memories of my childhood behind.
“It’s pretty awesome,” I lie. “This place is incredible. I mean, we’re still trying to take it all in—being somewhere other than Earth. That’s huge.” Ted plops his bulging body into the water and we talk training sessions, skate tracks, and upcoming school and sports for a few minutes.
“You and Kira are really lucky to be able to experience it. Not many people can make the journey, you know. It has taken me all week to recover. But since you’re so young and adaptable, I hear you’ve had no issues.” I try to read between the lines to see what he’s getting at. With the noise of the jets it’s very unlikely our conversation can be heard, but I know to be careful anyway.
“Well, the doctors and nurses have been all over us trying to manage any side effects. They seem pretty invested in making sure we’re a hundred percent healthy.” I can tell by his expression I’ve hit the jackpot.
“Of course they are. How often are you seeing them?” he asks.
“Nightly. They’ve been pretty worried about abdominal issues and some sort of lesions that muck with our reproductive systems, so they have checked our blood and given us vitamin shots. They even gave Kira a full abdominal ultrasound because she was complaining…about female stuff probably. I think she said bloating or something. They, uh, made me do some awkward tests too to make sure my fertility’s intact, but I guess the doctors don’t want my future wife showing up here one night accusing them of making me sterile, eh?” I laugh for effect.
“That’s assuming you don’t fall in love with someone here on Thera,” he says. “You and Kira have been pretty cozy, I understand. I just knew you’d like her once you got to know her.”
“What’s not to like? She is smart, hotter than hot, and actually pretty sweet to me. I mean, she wouldn’t have given me the time of night back home, but I don’t have a lot of competition here,” I say. “If it wasn’t for the whole Cleaving weirdness I think we could really be an item. But we’re both a little freaked about being stuck here and never being able to see our families again.” It would be only natural for us to feel this way, so I
don’t stress over saying it. He knows I have no family back home except “Aunt Jennifer,” and I’m sure she’s relieved to have me far away. I’d heard her label me “Unabomber clone” more than once when I’d chosen to be anti-social with the family.
Ted addresses my Cleaving comment with, “You guys shouldn’t be worrying about that! Of course you’ll see your families again.” Under his breath he adds, without moving his lips, “They do not plan to ever let you go. You both are pure descendants of the Original Theran settlers. I don’t know how this makes you so important yet, but I’m going to try to find out. They’re saying you are the ‘future of Thera’ and that scares me.” Ted’s words send chills up my spine, despite being immersed in hot water. We’re stuck here on Thera, with our only way out of Garden City being Exile. He adds, in a regular voice, “The only way you stay is if you Cleave Kira or any other girl here.”
“Uh, yeah, I don’t think Cleaving is on my near term to-do list.” I use an irritated tone. “What’s the whole Assisted Pregnancy thing anyway? Did people forget how to get pregnant the old-fashioned way?”
“All pregnancies are done in-vitro here to ensure only healthy babies are born,” he explains. I wish I knew more about in-vitro but reproductive technologies never hit my list of things to become an expert on.
“So, when are you heading back to Earth?” I ask, my implication being, “when will I be on my own?”
“Actually, change of plans,” he says. “The Grand Council promoted me, so I’ll be working right here at the SCI Headquarters in Garden City. I’m excited. I love it here. I really think the place will grow on you and Ms. Donovan, too.”
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