A Long, Long Sleep

by Anna Sheehan

  “Royal Families?”

  “His, Guillory’s, and the Nikios. And of course you, now.”

  “Nikios?”

  “They’re in charge of most off- planet accounts — you haven’t met them. But all three of these families have been involved almost from the beginning. The children of people hired by your parents. Once UniCorp has hold of you, it doesn’t seem to let you go. It grabs you by the bloodline.” She touched her brother’s face.

  I stared at the man. He had a kind face, but seemed a little lost. I wanted to draw it. It seemed familiar. Then I realized they all did. When I looked more closely, I saw Bren in every face in that photograph. I turned away as if the paper had bitten me, and I focused my attention on Mrs. Sabah. “You don’t need to stay with me.”

  “I’ll wait with you until Reggie gets here,” she said. The proximity chime on the door dinged. “Speak of the devil.”

  She left me on the couch staring at Bren’s family portrait. Envy suddenly stabbed me. I wanted his family! My heart hurt. I slammed the album shut and picked up my bag, dashing tears from my eyes.

  – chapter 17—

  I dropped off Zavier in my apartment, fervently hoping that Patty and Barry were serious when they said they’d take care of him. Knowing them, they’d probably hire a dog sitter, but I didn’t care. Just as long as he was all right until I got back. I felt a little guilty for wanting to go off into stass and leave him behind for two weeks. Somehow being stassed didn’t feel as real to me as leaving did.

  Mr. Guillory led me down to his own private limoskiff, which made mine look like a canoe. It was a huge hover yacht, with seats made of soft indigo- dyed kidskin. I could see at least one reason Guillory didn’t want me to bring Zavier; he’d have chewed on the cushions.

  Once we’d settled into the wide seats and the yacht took off, Guillory opened a little bar set in the wall and offered me a wine cooler. I didn’t know how to tell him my stomach was still uneasy, so I accepted. If I nursed it slowly, it probably wouldn’t be too bad. “Would you like to hear some music, or start a holoprogram? We’ve got quite a ways to drive yet.”

  “Music would be fine,” I said. I realized that Guillory found this just as awkward as I did. He rattled off a few names, but the only one I recognized was a band I’d heard the kids at school talking about. At the end of the unfathomable list, he added, “Or I have some cello suites from Bach.”

  “That would be great,” I said, seizing on the familiar.

  As the thick, sweet toffee strains of music flooded the cabin, I curled back in my seat, wishing I had Zavier’s comforting head to scratch. Or Xavier to snuggle, as long as I was wishing. I watched out the window as ComUnity was left behind, and we entered grayer urban landscape.

  I’d expected to be horri fied. I always was when I went into the city proper. But it didn’t take me long before I realized the city, as I had known it, was dead.

  Gone were the pushing throngs of harried people. Gone were the poisonous fumes and the sounds of gang wars. Gone were the starving children who would come up to my windows at traf fic stops, tapping with little pebbles to make a noise. Gone were the uniformed private security firms, with their electroguns and lethal antipersonnel shields, who would seize the beggars and pull them into dark alleyways.

  I couldn’t believe it. “Are we skirting the city?” I asked, convinced we were avoiding the most unpleasant neighborhoods.

  Guillory looked out the window. “No,” he said. “This is it.”

  I suspected some kind of ghetto scheme, a concentration camp. “Where do they keep the poor?”

  Guillory studied the streets for me. “I think that’s one,” he said. He pointed to a young mother who had her small child in a secondhand stroller. She was busking, playing a rather battered guitar for passersby.

  I frowned at her through the tinted windows of the hover yacht. She was not starving. Her clothing was old, but neither ragged nor filthy. Whatever her circumstances, she had had enough free time when she wasn’t scrounging for money or food that she had learned a luxury skill, such as music. Her child had a toddler’s cup of juice in one hand and seemed to be laughing with the music. “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “Nope.” He smiled at me. “Looks different, doesn’t it? After the Dark Times, there weren’t enough people left to waste.”

  “But where are the security guards?”

  “If no one’s desperate, there isn’t as much need to riot. Most security firms went out of business toward the tail end of the Reconstruction.” He frowned.

  “UniCorp lost a lot of good stock in those,” he mused. “Good thing we were diversified.”

  I stared at him. How could Guillory only be concerned with how much pro fit UniCorp had lost when the security firms were no longer needed? He was younger than I was, if you took my birthday into account. I was already in stass when Guillory had been born. Yet he was not young. Mid to late fif-ties, I supposed. Which meant that he was born in the midst of the Dark Times. In his childhood he would have seen much of the same squalor and inequality that I had seen. The Reconstruction had mended all the horri fic gaps in society that I had taken as a matter of course during my lifetime. They’d told me this in history, but the words hadn’t been real to me until I’d seen it. If it hadn’t been the product of total and utter collapse, I would have considered it a miracle.

  Guillory happened to be wearing a deep- blue suit today, which made him look a little less like a golden statue, but he still unnerved me. I didn’t want to try to make conversation. I pulled out my sketchbook and started another drawing of my Xavier.

  It amazed me that I never forgot his face, but I knew that was probably because of the stass. The memories of days just before going into stass always seemed more concrete than other memories. Stass held them fresh in your brain until long after you would ordinarily have let them drift into your subconscious, until they were indelibly imprinted. I still remembered the look on Xavier’s face when I said good- bye . . . as much as I wished I didn’t. Instead I tried to think of all the times he’d caught me in his arms, how nice it was to wake from stass and find him and Åsa waiting for me.

  The year I spent with Xavier when I was fifteen was the best year of my life, though it had started a bit rocky. For the first time, I had feared going into stasis.

  It was one thing to wake up and find that my dear friend had grown from five to six, and I’d missed it. It was another to be away from my boyfriend for four, six, nine months. Time had never seemed so precious to me.

  And for once, I was fortunate. Usually whenever I came out of stass we had a new maid. This time was no different.

  Two weeks after Xavier and I shared our first kiss, my mom hired Åsa.

  Åsa was from Sweden. She had hair the color of honey, with lines of silver white in it. She was a sergeant major of a servant. She’d force me into cleaning up my own bedroom, something no other maid had ever done. She taught me how to do my own laundry, how to cook simple meals, how to fill out college applications. I thought it was a little early to do such things, but she insisted that I learn. I thought my parents would choose my college for me . . .

  whenever that happened. But she thought I should know things, “Just in case”

  “Just in case” was a big phrase with Åsa.

  I never told my parents how strict she was with me. I fig-ured they’d fire her if they knew, and I rather liked her. She seemed very real to me.

  A week or so after Åsa came, Mom caught me by surprise just before dinner.

  “I have something for you,” she said.

  “Really?” I popped over and stood with my hands clasped politely. Mom laughed and kissed me, and then she held out both fists. “Pick one.”

  I frowned and picked the left one. It had a caramel in it. I was a bit disappointed, but I took it anyway. “Thanks.”

  Mom laughed and opened her other hand. “Oh, wow!” I said, and gently took the Bit
Camera that she held out to me. It was the size of my pointer finger, small enough to keep around my neck, and it automatically adjusted to take the clearest digital photos of any device on the market.

  “It’s so you can take pictures and reference them later. For your paintings.”

  “Oh, Mom, thanks so much!” I hugged her tightly and she smoothed my hair.

  “Go dig out a chain for it from your jewelry box. I think the silver square link would look best with it. And while you’re at it, you should change for dinner.

  Royal blue tonight. I think you have two dresses that color this season, but you can choose between them.”

  “Thanks.”

  “By the way, you should know,” she said as I headed toward my room. “We’re going to a business retreat at the end of the month.”

  I stopped. “Oh,” I said. I turned back to her, gripping the BitCamera in my hand. “Do you have to?”

  “Yes, dear. Do you want to go to your tube tonight, or wait until the day we leave?”

  “I’d like to wait, Mom,” I said.

  Mom frowned. “Are you sure? We’ll be busy these next few days, packing and such.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “Only a month or two. No need to worry.”

  I gulped. “Right,” I said.

  Later, I could only nibble at my meal.

  I found Xavier in the communal garden after dinner. I fell into his arms and he wrapped himself around me without comment. After a few moments, he kissed my forehead. “What’s wrong, Rose?”

  “Mom and Daddy are going on a business retreat,” I said.

  “Already.” Xavier pulled back, appalled. “But it’s only been a few weeks!” “I know,” I said. It wasn’t fair. “Will you wait for me?” Xavier’s eyes were full of pain. “I always wait for you. . . .

  But . . .” “I know,” I said, and my voice reflected the pain in his eyes. “How long?” “They say only a month or two.” “That’s what they said last time, and it was more than seven.” I sniffed. “I’ll be back,” I said. “I will be. I promise you.”

  “I know you will. I know you will.” He covered my face with kisses until my knees buckled and I melted in his arms. “I’ll miss you!” he hissed. “Oh, hell!”

  And he gripped me tight enough to bruise. “It’s not fair!”

  “It’s for the best,” I said, more to reassure myself than him. “That’s what you always say.” He ran his fingers through my hair. “Can’t you see that it’s different now?” “Of course I see that!” I pulled away from him. “Do you think I want you to leave me behind?”

  “You’re the one leaving me,” Xavier pointed out. “Can’t you tell them to leave you out? You’re nearly sixteen; isn’t it right to give you some freedom?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not old enough to be alone. They know that.”

  Xavier’s shoulders sagged. “I could ask Mom and Dad if you could stay with us.”

  “They’d never permit it,” I said. “They’d never go against Daddy.”

  This was true. They worked for UniCorp just like every-one else in ComUnity.

  Daddy was king here.

  Xavier tossed his head as if trying to force a solution out of it. “Could you ask them to take you with them? We could talk over the net. That would be better than . . . than . . .”

  “I know,” I said. “But there’s nothing we can do. We still have a few days before they go. Can’t we just enjoy them?”

  Xavier clenched his fists. “Ask them. Please, just ask them!”

  I didn’t want to ask them. It felt wrong to question them. But for Xavier . . . “I’ll try,” I said.

  “Of course you can’t come with us, honey,” Mom said when I tried the next evening. “We’ll be working all day. You’d just be underfoot.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I could, you know, learn about the company, for when I grow up. And . . .”

  Daddy laughed. “You won’t have to worry about that, little one. You just keep playing with your little paint set.”

  “But I . . .” I knew it wouldn’t work. But for Xavier, I’d try anything. “I think I could be getting old enough to look out for myself. With a little help, I could stay here. You could hire a tutor or . . .”

  Mom started as if she’d been whipped. “You want to stay here by yourself ?

  What are you thinking! You’re a child! Mark, talk some sense into your daughter.”

  “Listen to your mother,” Daddy said without looking at me.

  “But Daddy —”

  He turned to glare. “Did you just say but to me?”

  “No, sir,” I said, looking down at the ground.

  But by now Daddy was angry. “You do not contradict me in my own house, do you hear me? I get enough of that at work. When I get home, I expect to be obeyed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  There was a weighty pause while Daddy regarded my bowed head. “That’s better,” he said, petting my hair gently. “Now, apologize to your mother.”

  I turned my gaze back to her. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “That’s all right, honey,” Mom told me, wrapping me in a warm hug. “I think you’re a little overexcited. You go into your room and get things in order. I think we should put you in stass tonight.”

  “Tonight?” I tried to keep the shock out of my voice when I looked up at her.

  “Don’t you think you’re overexcited?” she asked, looking earnestly into my eyes.

  Her own blue eyes shone with concern.

  I thought about this. I did feel flustered and unhappy. She was probably right.

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “That’s a good girl,” Mom said, kissing me on the cheek. “I knew you’d make the right decision. I’ll order us a nice dinner before you turn in. Lobster or quail?”

  “Quail, please,” I said, forcing a smile.

  “Of course, honey. Anything you want.”

  What I wanted was to stay with Xavier, but I didn’t dare ask again.

  I went into my room and made up my bed, making sure that all the laundry was carefully sorted so that Åsa could take care of it for me while I was stassed. Then I organized my paints so that they’d be neat and ready for me when I got out. I frowned at the oil painting I had started, a tortuous glowing mountainscape under a night sky. It was almost alien, except for the plant life I’d begun to fill the painting with, which looked more aquatic than terrestrial. I was very proud of it so far, but I knew I’d probably forget the vision I had for it by the time I got out. My artwork always evolved a bit during long periods of stasis.

  And Xavier might have evolved beyond me. Maybe he’d go back to that Claire girl, or maybe he’d find someone new. Tears coursed down my face, and I tried to force them back in. Mom and Daddy couldn’t see that I’d been crying. They were right; I was too high- strung. Far too emotional over the littlest things.

  Åsa opened the door to my room, with a basket of clean laundry under her arm. “Oh, so sorry, miss,” she said with a little bob. “Thought you were out with your young man.”

  Xavier! He didn’t know I was going into stass tonight! I flew to the nearest sketchbook and scribbled out a letter as fast as I could. “Åsa, I need you to do something for me!” I said.

  “What?”

  “I need you to give this message to Xavier tomorrow. Can you do that?”

  “Of course, miss. But can’t you give it yourself ?”

  “No, I’m going into stasis tonight.”

  “Stasis? Whatever for?”

  “Mom and Daddy are going away on business,” I said. “Please, just give this to Xavier?”

  Åsa blinked at me a few times, and then nodded. I signed the letter, Love always, Rose, and tore it from the sketchbook. I pressed the folded sheet of paper into her hand.

  “Why stasis?” Åsa asked. She was new to the dynamics of our household.

  I sighed, disgruntled.
“It’s hard to explain.”

  Åsa’s face turned hard on me suddenly. “Ja, flicka,” she said. “I’ll do what you ask.”

  After our farewell dinner, Daddy gave me a hug before Mom led me into my big closet, where we kept my stass tube. She helped me inside and kissed me. “You make me very proud. You know that, honey? You always make the right decisions in the end.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too. See you in a few months.”

  “Have a nice trip.”

  “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  The music started, and I could smell the sweet perfume of the stass chemicals as the hatch slowly closed over me. Mom was right. This was the right decision.

  I tried not to think of Xavier.

  ...

  I kept my eyes closed, at first, and tried to hold on to my stass dream, which involved sailing on the surface of glowing molten lava. The lava should have been hot, but was as comfortable as a relaxing bath. Someone held my hand quietly, and I was surprised. Mom usually kept shaking me until I gave up on my stass and my dream. The quiet presence woke me more quickly than Mom’s prodding ever had. To my surprise, when I opened my eyes, the face smiling down on me was not Mom’s. “Xavier?”

  He grinned as wide as a church door.

  “How did you get in here?”

  He jerked his head behind him, and I saw Åsa standing by the door. “Morning, miss.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, and the answer made me feel both elated and guilty.

  Åsa had delivered my message to Xavier and asked him why I was going into stass. Xavier told her the truth, that they put me in regularly. When he’d admitted that he’d known me since I was seven, Åsa said nothing. But the morning after my parents’ departure, she’d knocked boldly on Xavier’s door and asked him if he knew how stass tubes worked. Xavier was a rather accomplished hacker, and within a few hours, he’d figured out a way to change the chronometer on my stass tube so it would read that I was still inside.