The lower level was the living space. There was a huge kitchen space with the first refrigerator she had seen in a long time, massive metal counters for chopping and holding different machines, more shelves full of cans and dried goods that had surely been scavenged as well. Then there were two big stoves with ovens underneath, and it appeared that several Alliance members were planning out a meal. They stood in a group with their heads hanging down to see something being held in the middle of their view: a recipe of some kind.
The dining space was a huge, communal table in the middle of the space with benches on either side. Beyond that was a line of beds tucked under the loft and away from the kitchen. The air was cool and soft throughout the whole structure. Nothing was hidden or tucked away, but rather shared with everything else when it came to space. Harper looked at each individual living there and saw smiles, well-fed bodies moving, and heard laughter and light conversation all around her.
“Harper. I was hoping you would come.”
She turned to see Alex holding one little pale boy in one arm and holding hands with a very small, dark-skinned girl with pigtails. She looked about two years old and was holding on tight to Alex’s pinky. She nodded and gave him a friendly smile. “Yes. I was hoping I could talk to you about some things that have come up recently. Is there somewhere we could sit and chat?”
“You’re in a rush,” he told her. He set the boy down and encouraged him to go upstairs and find a book. He whispered something to the girl, who put her fingers in her mouth and shook her head no. “You sure? We’re just going to do boring, grown-up stuff. You could go play.” She thought about it and shook her head no again. He looked up at Harper apologetically. “Little Daisy here is going to tag along, if you don’t mind. Her mom is out on a foraging trip, and she’s feeling a little insecure.”
“I don’t mind,” Harper said, smiling at Daisy who promptly hid behind Alex’s leg. “She’s very sweet.”
“Yeah,” Alex agreed, reaching behind his leg to give her a little tickle. “She’s a doll. Come on, let’s get a cup of coffee…oh, no. I’m so sorry, you can’t. We’ll have tea and have a talk on the couches.”
They walked through the space, and Harper wondered at the mention of coffee. Where were they getting that stuff? Even when her father was in power, the black, caffeinated liquid was extremely hard to find. Perhaps they had uncovered a stash of instant crystals somewhere.
Alex led the way to the big, soft couches just behind the massive table. He nodded to fellow members as they went and even stopped to hash out some details about work that needed done with one of the young women. “We need those ovens working,” he told her. “We can’t have everyone going hungry.”
“I’m on it,” she assured him, and then nodded politely to Harper. They made it to the sofas, and Alex pulled aside a young human boy.
“Max,” he said, “my friend Harper and I could really use some herbal tea. Would you ask if someone on kitchen crew could make us a pot? That would be so nice of you. Thanks.”
The boy walked off with the message, and Alex turned to his visitor. “Well,” he said, gesturing to the space, “what do you think of our headquarters?”
“Alex,” she said, shaking her head a little, “why didn’t you show all this to everyone in the forest? We all thought you guys were out here living on next to nothing. None of us knew you had a whole crew of designers and builders. It’s wonderful in here.”
“You know,” he said, shaking his head and pulling little Daisy up onto his lap, “I tried. The idea of communal living is one that goes way back to ancient times. If it’s organized and well-run, it can be a very prosperous arrangement. But people wanted privacy and walls. They laughed at me when I tried to change their minds.” He looked at her with a pointed expression, making sure she knew she had been one of the people who’d dismissed him.
“Well, I wish I had at least come to see it. Hey,” she adjusted on the soft couch, snuggling up to the cushions, “where did you guys find coffee?”
“Just a few minutes from here. A few wild spice plants have come up where the edges of the city used to be. I have no idea how they got there, but we’ve got coffee beans, vanilla plants, and cinnamon trees. Someone must have had the seeds and not known what to do with them before the big change.”
Harper looked around again, not at the physical space but the people in it. She had always believed she’d found the perfect life for herself in the forest, but now she wasn’t so sure. Never seeing the Alliance had allowed her to create her own narrative for the group in her mind. Now, with all of them in front of her, none of that made-up story matched up with the reality. These were well-rounded, educated and happy people. Hardly the angry, poor population that existed in her imagination.
“So,” Alex said, crossing his legs and smiling at the young man who brought over the tea, “you’re here at long last. What changed your mind?”
She accepted the hot, steaming cup and breathed in the smell of lemongrass as she held it under her nose. “Thanks for this. Well, I was wondering if you know anything about this new, clear booze that’s being served in a little bar in the forest.”
“What about it?”
He didn’t look at her while he sat Daisy down next to him and took a sip of tea.
So, he does know something. She paused and took a sip as well. The drink was citrusy and bright. She could feel her muscles relax as it went down. “Mm. This is lovely.” She took another little sip and then set her cup down. “I’m concerned someone may have gotten drunk and hurt Marcus. I understand the drink erases the memory of the night it’s drunk. Maybe someone attacked the boy without knowing they did it.”
“That’s not necessarily true.”
She paused and looked at him a little more closely. He looked very tense, and she could tell that he was chewing the inside of his lower lip.
“No? Perhaps you can enlighten me.”
Alex appeared to be having an internal dialogue with himself, and it didn’t appear to be going well. Harper waited, very curious about what it was that had made him so upset.
“I’m just saying, the alcohol only erases the drinker’s memory if they overdo it. If a person takes it easy and only has three or so, it’s fine. No memory loss. Just a good time.”
“Alex,” she said, touching his arm lightly, “can you tell me if the Alliance is making this stuff?”
He looked at the floor just in front of him, shaking his head no. “We were approached by a few guys we didn’t know were living out here. They’re very cagey and secretive, want to bring back the cash system. They asked if some of the Alliance could build them a still. Something to make the booze. Well, I have the best engineers around, so my children jumped on it.”
“Your children?”
“Sorry,” he chuckled, “that’s a term we use around here. I just mean the younger generation. Anyhow, they got it together, and the guys agreed to leave our property alone and come to us with any future jobs. We were told the stuff was safe, but, well…” His voice trailed off, and he looked at the door. Little Daisy held up a piece of paper for him to see, and he pulled her onto his lap and held her as if she were a little teddy bear. The little girl patted his cheek.
“Don’ cwy, Alice.”
He squeezed her a little tighter and let her wiggle off of his lap again. He watched her as he spoke to his guest.
“Harper, when was the last time you saw your dad?”
She cleared her throat. “The day he died. Why?”
He brushed a non-existent something off of his pants. “I’m just wondering if maybe there was a chance that someone in your family could still be alive. Did your dad have a brother or cousin he mentioned?”
“Alex,” she said, her voice rising as her blood went a little cold, “what are you talking about? Are there Bachmanns around here? If there are, tell me. Tell me now!”
All around them, members of the Alliance froze and looked over at the two people on the couches. Ad
ults, teenagers, children all stopped and turned like curious statues. Alex raised his hand and smiled at the room.
“It’s okay. Back to work, everyone. It’s almost lunch time.”
They turned away, but they did so with a reluctant air, not quite sure if this angry woman was reason for concern or not. Harper could almost feel their eyes watching her from their corners. She turned her head and played with her hair for a moment. She longed to chew it but stopped herself.
“How much do you know about what Marcus was up to the day he died?”
She turned back to him. “Well, I talked to his mother and his friends. I found a little hiding place he had in the forest. I feel like I have a fairly clear idea.”
He nodded. “Good. It’s a good start. People are talking to you, which is important. My advice,” he said, his voice heavy and flat, “is to recreate the events of his last day. That should shed some light on all of this. Now,” he said, standing, “I would invite you to lunch, but we’re not prepared for guests today. Next time, we’ll be sure to have some extra food for you and Grey. Just give me a few hours’ notice.”
He waited while Harper stared at him and then stood awkwardly. He helped her a little, taking her hand as the weight of her belly made her arch back and roll up. “Thanks. Alex, I still don’t understand. What about the still? The guys who commissioned it? What’s up with all of that?”
“I think,” Alex said in that same dark tone, “that if your dad didn’t tell you about certain family members, he must have been protecting you from some bad characters. Find who killed Marcus but, and I mean this, keep yourself safe. There are still some leftover elements of the old regime out there.” He took her arm as they walked to the big door. Just before it opened, he said one last thing to her.
“Helping with that still is my one regret. We made a mistake. Tell Grey to shut it down.”
Chapter Eight
Deja Vu
While Harper had been inside the hangar, Grey had been outside staring at the crumbling remains of the city. This place had once been huge, swallowing up everyone who came near it. He remembered the rare visits he had assisted with it whenever President Bachmann, his former leader and boss, had dared to travel into the depths of this place. Then, it had been broad streets, crackling with heat. Families were packed into tiny homes while the president and his cronies sprawled out in giant mansions on top of the mountain that overlooked them all. He remembered being curious why the humans in the city didn’t rage against the wealthy, why they let them live peacefully while the poor struggled to make their way.
As he got older, he had understood. Their spirits had been broken by crippling poverty a long time ago, and they simply accepted their lot. They believed the rich were better off because they were better people and deserved their fortunes. Without even realizing it, he had done the same in the compound. For years, he and his father could have left, walked out and lived on their own in the wilderness. But they didn’t. They stayed and let Bachmann and all of his associates and employees tell them what to do.
It wasn’t easy finding freedom. Sometimes, a creature had to lose everything in order to see just how free they were.
“You guys live in the city when it was around?” He searched the guards’ faces for any sign of an affirmation, but they remained silent, watching the horizon. “Oh, right. You’re on duty. Forget I asked.”
He resumed his own silence, crossing his arms and staring back in the direction of the forest. As he watched, three small figures emerged. He could hear them before he could see them properly. They were hooting and jeering as they skipped and ran out of the trees.
The group made their way over to the hangar, getting louder as they approached. Grey squinted a little to see who it might be, but they were three young boys he didn’t recognize. “Huh,” he said to himself. “Here’s three little guys who think they’re three big guys.” He turned to the guards. “You know them?”
The two sighed and rolled their eyes. “Unfortunately,” one of them mumbled, prompting the other to elbow him hard in the ribs.
“Hey security guards! Security! This boy is a thief! He’s breaking into treehouses at night and stealing toys. Aren’t you going to do anything?” The littlest of them all, who seemed to be the leader of the crew, was calling out his accusations as he ran up. “Hey! I’m talking to you!” He bent to pick something up and threw it through the air with a flick of his wrist. It whirred past Grey to hit the guard on the left in the arm.
The guard winced, but otherwise didn’t react. The boys fell down laughing, rolling on the ground. The bigger of the two boys started to yell out requests for their little friend’s next attempt.
“Kick him this time!”
“No, tell him he stinks.”
“Nah. That’s no good. I dare you to slap his belly!”
Just talking about these things got the boys giggling so hard they couldn’t stop. They tossed and turned on the ground and kicked their legs up into the air. After a hearty round of laughing, the small one leapt up and made a beeline for the guard on the right.
“He’s going to do it! He’s going to slap his stomach!”
Grey looked at the guards. “Do something.”
The guard on the right steeled himself for contact, gritting his teeth. “We can’t. It’s not allowed.” He tensed up further as tiny feet sent grass flying and the little demon sped toward him.
“Well, I’m not on duty,” Grey said to the men and bent down to scoop the little boy up.
“Ah! Ah! Help! Help! He’s got me!” The boys flailed in every direction while Grey held him high enough that none of his kicks or slaps landed, only fought the air around him. He inspected the boy’s face to see if he could recognize the little troublemaker, but he wasn’t sure he knew this boy.
“All right, big man,” Grey said in his sternest voice, “who are your parents?”
The boy didn’t answer, just kept crying out to his friends who watched from the grass, uncertain whether to run away or help.
“Stop screaming,” Grey tried again, keeping his voice a little gentler. It made no difference. “If you stop screaming I’ll put you down.” Still no luck. He’d had enough and kneeled down, bending the boy over his bent leg. He put a hand on the boy’s flank. “Do I have to spank you?”
“No! No, don’t spank me. Please, please don’t. I’ll tell you.” Angry, frightened tears came to the boy’s eyes. “My mom is Minerva. Minerva Miner. I’m Shep. Please don’t tell her about this. She’ll be so mad!”
“I tell you what, Shep,” he said, putting a hand on the little boy’s shoulder, “I won’t. Not if you apologize to these nice guys and promise to never come back here again. Can you say sorry?”
Shep looked up at the guards with big, sad eyes, playing the innocent child as much as possible. “I’m sorry,” he said with defeat in his voice. “I won’t come back anymore.”
The guards thanked him for his apology and then went back to their work of standing still. Grey took Shep’s hand and walked with him to his friends in the grass. “All right now, you boys have to find somewhere else to play.”
“We want to play here,” Shep whined. “The forest is where Marcus died. What if I die next?”
Shep sounded panicked at the thought, and Grey stopped him, holding him by his hand so he couldn’t run off. “Wait, you were friends with Marcus?”
“Yes. And it’s a mystery and no one knows what happened, but it happened in the forest. We can’t play there anymore. We don’t like it.” He ripped his hand away from Grey and ran to the trees, his two associates in hot pursuit. The three glanced over their shoulders as they tore across the ground at top speed to see if Grey was following. He wasn’t; he wanted them to go. He wasn’t sure what he had just tapped into, but it frightened him.
He wandered back to the door and found the guards smiling a little.
“You all right, man?” He surreptitiously checked the arm of the left guard. It was red but otherw
ise fine.
“Yeah. Thanks. And thanks for getting those kids to leave. They’re here every other day.”
“Really?” They nodded, and Grey let that sink in a moment. “Hey, any chance there used to be four of them?”
The two thought about it and then nodded. “Yeah,” the right guard agreed, “now that you mention, there were four. I just wrote them all off as annoying. I figured one of them got sick of being a jerk.”
“No,” Grey said, staring off at the trees, “that’s not what happened.”
The door behind them began to swing up from the ground and revealed Harper and Alex, the latter carrying a little girl who was sleeping against his chest. The two of them looked fine, and Grey got no indication that he had any reason to worry. He got just a glimpse of the inside and was surprised to find how populated it was, but had no time to ask about it.
“Here she is, safe and sound.” Alex stepped forward and shook Grey’s hand. “I think a lot of people get the wrong impression about us. We’re trying to change that.”
“Well, we appreciate any help you can give us.”
Alex shrugged. “Sure. I told Harper everything I know. I’d stay and chat, but I’m on daycare duty today. I have to get all the little ones down for a nap. Next time, you two come for a meal and meet everyone properly,” he said, slapping Grey on the back.
They all smiled politely and made open-ended plans for their next visit, none of them committing to a date or time. The couple left the guards and the partially open hangar full of families and inventions as they crossed the open field back to the forest.
“I have so much to tell you,” Harper confided to Grey, taking his hand. “I’m not even sure where to start.”
“You really want to come back and visit this place?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Oh!” She stopped and put a hand on her stomach. “I felt something!”
Grey’s face lit and up, and he knelt down in front of her stomach. “Movement? I mean, is it moving? Oh my gosh, already. I can hardly believe–”
Briar on Bruins' Peak (Bruins' Peak Bears Book 7) Page 58