by Nirina Stone
“Maybe they think we need to learn to find our own food rather than rely on them for that on top of our security,” I say. I didn’t mean for it to come out so stiff and have no idea why I’d feel the need to defend them.
Eric scans my face for a moment. Then he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Tell your mother I need to speak with her,” he says.
Before I confirm I will, the screen is blank. Not so much as a “goodbye” or a “see you later.”
Okay. “Sure, Leader Strohm,” I say to my reflection in the otherwise blank mirror. “Whatever you say, sir.”
Things at Apex can’t be going that well if all I ever see these days is his Interviewer face. I miss his happy boyish face—but something tells me that was of another time. Eric the Leader is a serious person to contend with.
I’d hate to be one of the Prospo that they have imprisoned at Azure, undergoing questioning and various other intelligence-related activities. I’d had a brief taste of it two years ago, and I wasn’t even an enemy.
I fight off a shiver and head downstairs to catch the next shuttle to land.
Though we’re still surrounded by water, I’m inclined to stay on land as much as possible. They can keep their swordfish hunts and whale hunts—I’ll stick to venison and rabbits, thank you.
I walk through our fields and take stock of our maize and greens and various other vegetable gardens. It looks good and smells amazing. I can’t imagine a better place. It’s much like what Citizen City should have been—brimming with food and sunlight and not forced underground. I breathe in everything as I walk, take pride in what I’ve helped build.
We get to make a new start, like the Pioneers. Though we’ve learnt from their mistakes—we know what not to do. We will not repeat the mistakes of the ancients, not as long as we remember. Just like in Liberty, Sorens and Prospo and Citizens in Haven will work side-by-side, carving out our ideal community.
Every time I walk through the town, I can’t help feeling a sense of accomplishment.
Who would have thought it? Me. The girl who shuffled through Azure Prison distributing books, auctioned off as a useless Label C, then a Soren Prisoner turned Legacy and now—world-builder!
Even Father would approve. Though he’d likely tell me to stop being so smug. “Just get on with the work,” he’d say. “Don’t waste time pruning. Just work.”
Well Father, look at all the work I’ve done so far.
It’s looking far better than I’d imagined, and I can’t wait until other people move in and we’re a prosperous, bustling community.
There are no more duties for me today so I head towards my home, the one I share with Mother. We could have our own separate houses, but we wanted to stay together. We want to be close—there have been plenty of years spent apart.
I walk in and call out her name but she’s not home.
Of course she’s not—Mother’s a general now. She’s rarely ever home. She can’t even give me a time on when to expect her, since much of what she does is ‘Intel’, meaning not for my ears. Meaning, I wouldn’t know what Mother does during the day—other than spending most of it in her offices or in the Iliad—and meaning I never know when I’ll see her next.
I hear a small beep and walk into her room just as her Mirrorcom flashes a picture of Eric’s face. I know it’s not any of my business.
Secondly, if he’s leaving her a message here, she must not be at the Military compound—she may very well be on her way back here. I hesitate, but curiosity wins out and I’m already in front of the Mirrorcom, pressing the button to listen to the message before I can stop myself.
“Your daughter’s getting complacent,” Eric says, “we should encourage her to move back. You were right, and I’m in. I will support your decision. Call me please. Oh, and you forgot your Liberty dossier here. I’ve sent it on the next secure courier.”
The thought they’re communicating about me and making “decisions” about me rankles. Who knows what they’re planning? And why in the world would I move back? He said Mother was in P-City? In Liberty, I mean? I still have a tough time not calling it Prospo City, given that that was its name for the first twenty-one years of my life.
As the Mirrorcom blacks out and I stare back at my face, I wonder what they’re planning for me. I wonder how to find out. My job here in Haven is the occasional botfix and digitizing old books the Sorens occasionally hunt down.
What else would they have planned for me, and why aren’t they talking to me directly?
Sitting here wondering about it is not clarifying anything so, not knowing what else to do, I decide to grab an old book and sunbathe in the backyard.
Well, I’ll be under the shade for most of it—Mother’s rule. After the one time I managed to get a sunburn, she never lets me sit outside for long. I’ve told her the nanobots will take care of any potential dangerous cells, but she doesn’t want to hear it. Oh well.
I’m happy to breathe in the fresh air, even if I can’t feel the sun on my skin all day long as I’d like.
Three gardenbots work in the backyard, busy mowing and raking and cleaning as they go. I watch them for a moment, then crack open the book and get lost in its world.
When a bang startles me, I realize I fell asleep. It takes a moment to reorient myself to my surroundings.
“Romy,” Mother says. She sits across from me, a small smile on her bright face. Is it me? Or is Mother looking younger every day? I smile back. Her hazel eyes are curtained by long lashes as she watches me stretch.
“Sorry Mother,” I reply. “I’m more tired than I thought.” Then I remember that she was in Apex until recently. “Are you tired after your trip?” I ask.
It takes a day to travel there and back, but she’s never seemed tired after such long trips, anyway.
“What trip?” she says. “I’ve been at the compound all along.”
But, I think, Strohm said that—then I remember. He said something that wasn’t for my ears. Still, I wonder why she’d feel the need to lie to me about such a trivial thing. She’s the general—she can come and go as she pleases. So it confounds me.
It’s certainly not the first time I’ve caught her in a lie, but every time it happens, I wonder. I don’t challenge her on it though. It would only give away the fact that I snooped where I didn’t belong. So I say, “Okay.”
Her smile widens. “I heard about your little—misadventure—with the missions team.”
Great. I’m the laughingstock of the day. “The fish was—it was really big.” I don’t know what else to add. The general has far more important things to worry about than my failed attempt at rustling up food.
She watches me for a moment. “I’m more curious,” she says, “about why you were there. Why you went on the hunt with them.”
I want to say that I wanted to eat swordfish again. Truth be told, I’m not a fan—the strong, oily, taste of the stuff doesn’t agree with me. Besides, I didn’t have to hunt it myself to have some again. So—what? Maybe I couldn’t find something better to do, I think. Life here is busy, but with the help of the working bots, I have plenty of time on my hands.
“That Commander Blair—” Mother says. I suddenly remember him laughing at me again. Ugh. Why does she have to bring him up? I was having such a nice relaxing afternoon.
“What about the commander?” I ask.
“How is he at the hunt?” she asks.
I remember the first time I went out on a hunt with the missions team. They’d caught a bull shark that time, and I remember disliking the taste of that one too.
It had taken four of them to pull the shark on to the boat and wrestle it down. They could easily use bots for the whole thing, but enjoy doing it all themselves.
I remember the smell of fish, of salt and sweat. Of blood and guts when Blair pulled out a knife and slit it with one quick whip of his arm.
“No need to let it suffer,” he’d muttered. Then he turned and wiped the knife on the side of his pants. I
remember thinking how graceful he looked, how elegant. How deadly.
He turned to me and smiled, and something fluttered in me that I’d never felt before. Then I turned away from him before I could define what it was. Since then, I’ve told myself it was just admiration. That’s all—nothing more.
I cough and say, “He’s good.”
She makes a quick “Hm,” noise and keeps her eyes on me. What is she reading on my face right now? I watch her hazel eyes and purse my lips.
“I spoke with Leader Strohm today,” she says. It’s bizarre, hearing Eric formally addressed like that. “They’re preparing to send the first flow of people our way from Apex.”
“That’s great,” I reply. It will be nice to have more people to show around our new way of life. To train them on how to use the new bots we’ll have stationed in their homes. That will keep me busy for a while.
“He’s not coming, of course,” she continues. I already know that. She knows that I know that. Why is she watching me like this?
“Mother,” I say. I want to tell her to spit it out, whatever it is she needs to say. I want her to stop asking questions and evaluating me and say it already. I’m not sure why I’m suddenly impatient, but I hold my tongue. This is Mother. This is General Mason, and the effective Leader of the people in Haven. I need to be more respectful. So I wait.
“You and Leader Strohm,” she continues. “You’re still communicating regularly?”
I nod, distracted by one of the gardenbots that’s been spinning in the same spot for the last minute. Realizing she’s waiting for me to answer, I say, “Yes—but not often.” Or not as often as you’d like. “He’s very busy.”
“And what are you doing to stay busy, Romy?” she asks. Ah, here it comes. “Other than spend time with the missions team, I mean?”
I guess she has a point. After we’ve planted everything, harvested, pickled, and cleaned up, I’m not doing much more than hunt, or try to hunt, and fail—miserably, for the last few weeks.
My days were once busy maintaining bots and digitizing newly found books. There are still new books every now and then—not as many as before, and it doesn’t take long for me to program them in. As for the bots, other than the occasional fix, they don’t need me that much. We have a more efficient team in place for that. My old Robotics skills are all but redundant in Haven.
“I read,” I finally reply. “I read and explore and—” well that’s it, really. I don’t tell her about my tinkering with old bots, taking them apart and making new bots out of them. That sort of activity doesn’t interest her one iota.
She raises an eyebrow and leans back into her chair, evaluating me again. There’s a part of me that wants to crawl into a corner and hold myself in a foetal position.
“Do you visit Knox?” she asks. Knox was my ex-bunkmate from Azure and newfound friend on the Iliad. She has opted to stay on the Iliad, feeling more at home on the boat than she does on land, so she says. She sends her eldest daughter to school on Haven and we don’t see each other that often. When I say as much, Mother raises her eyebrows again.
“Maybe I can find you an assignment,” she finally says, “on the Iliad.” Nausea fights to take over my throat and I take a quick gulp. She’s right, of course, I need an assignment. I need to find something to do. Staying idle has led me to eat more than normal, maybe more than I should. I’m gaining weight—extra padding around my waist I’ve never had before. My brain is probably turning to mush.
So I should find something to do, find a job on the Iliad, anything really, to keep me busy. Still, I want to stay on land. I desperately need to stay on land. “I’ll—I’ll find an assignment here, if that’s alright, Mother.”
She gives me that look again. “Okay, well I’ll check in on you in a couple of weeks.”
A couple of—
“Where are you going?” I blurt out. My voice comes out strangled and high-pitched, like a child’s.
She smiles and stands up. “It’s Intel, Romy.”
Of course it’s intel. That means I’ll never hear what it is, no matter how much I want to. It’s likely incredibly dangerous too, but I’m not allowed to worry—she never allows me to worry.
Which, of course, means that all I do is worry.
I suddenly want to run to the fridge and gorge my face but, remembering the extra padding, I stay put.
“I’ll contact you on the MirrorComm, okay?” she says. Then she gives me a swift peck on the forehead, and leaves.
The house is suddenly empty again. It’s not a mansion, none of our homes are, but it suddenly feels far too big for little old me.
I turn towards my bedroom and close the door tight behind me. It’s at least smaller in here. I feel like I can breathe better. The extra space and extra fresh air makes me dizzy and restless. I look at my bed longingly. It’s only six in the evening and I’m decidedly hungry. If I want to eat though, I must leave the room again, and that’s the very last thing I want to do.
Still, it’s early yet. So I move to my closet and take out the latest bot I’ve been working on. It was one of the retired drones we brought along with us from Apex and not the first bot I’ve smuggled in to my room.
No one will miss it—we don’t have a need for as many drones around here as we did in Apex. I pick up my trusty screwbot and work on it, moving wires around, adding components from other bots, and soldering it back together again.
My initial plan when I first cracked it open was to turn it into a spybot of sorts, so that I could listen in on some of mother’s “intel.” Turns out, our drones are good for watching, recording and reporting, not so much for listening. So that was a bust, and I still had the parts of the useless drone strewn around, so I messed around with other components.
What I’ve fashioned from the old drone won’t be much. Still, I reckon with tinkering and other bits and parts, I’ll be able to make a workable toy that the Havenite kids will enjoy.
I throw the bot as hard as I can against the closest wall. It smashes to bits without leaving a dent on the wall. Hundreds of pieces fly into the air, landing everywhere, some under my bed. Within a minute though, all the little pieces roll and gather to the same spot. Then it rebuilds itself.
I throw it a couple more times to test it, and each time it rebuilds itself into a random iteration. Testing doesn’t take me long though—just an hour, and I fight the urge again to go downstairs and eat.
So I climb into bed and cover myself under the blankets.
Tomorrow, I’ll go find something else to do. Tomorrow, I’ll go find a job. For now, I’m exhausted. I’ll sleep it off. I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow.
2
Legacies and Haven
It’s four days later, and I still haven’t left the house. I’ve barely left my room, except to take a shower, once. I probably reek but it doesn’t matter. It’s not like I have somewhere to be or anyone to see or really anything to do right now other than lie in bed.
At least I’m not eating too much any more. In fact, when was the last time I ate? I can’t even remember.
I try to run through affirmations, reciting words to focus my mind on positive things. I haven’t done that since my days in Azure Prison. All the words do is remind me I don’t have much to look forward to, or to be proud of. What in Odin is wrong with me?
I tell myself to get up, to go to the kitchen or the backyard or take a walk around Haven’s main town, or the Iliad.
Somewhere. Anywhere—but I’ve been telling myself that the last few days, and I still don’t budge.
The blanket feels nice on my cheeks. I’ll lie here and let it lie on me, I’ll try to sleep more.
Maybe when Mother comes back, we’ll take a trip together further north of here, to explore the—
What in Odin is that noise?
Someone’s banging incessantly at the front door. It doesn’t sound like they’re going away, either. They’ve come around knocking the last few days, but today, they’re not
letting up. Fine.
I shrug off the blanket and stare at the ceiling angrily while the banging continues. Then I throw my legs over the side of the bed and groan.
Why don’t they leave me alone? Is there a fire or something? What could possibly be so urgent right now?
I bump my way around the corner from my room, and shuffle towards the door. Mother has a mirror hung in our hallway, and I catch an eyeful of my dishevelled state.
I’ll just tell them to go away, anyway. No need to stand at attention.
Opening the door, I shut my eyes tight when sunlight hits my face.
“What the—” he says. It’s Blair. Of course it’s Blair. Who else would come and interrupt me while I’m having a perfectly good relaxing day? “I was just about to break down your door. What in the hell is wrong with you?” He’s not yelling, but this is the first time Blair’s ever raised his voice at me.
I peer at him through one eye. “Just tired, Blair,” I say. “What do you want?”
“You—you’re tired?” His voice is louder now. It’s not a tone I’ve ever heard from him. It makes me pop my chin higher and finally open both eyes. “You’re tired doing what?” he asks.
What does he care, anyway? How is it any of his business what I’m doing and why I’m tired? Why doesn’t he go away and leave me alone so I can sleep until Mother gets back from—wherever?
I stay quiet though—just stare at him. I can barely see his face, but he’s definitely livid. “What time is it?” I ask, trying to stifle a yawn.
“Not time for you to sleep,” he says, barging through the door.
“Wait—what are you doing?” I yell, but he’s pulling me by my right arm, dragging me through the house and into the backyard.
“I’m waking you the hell up!” he yells as he shoves me until I fall on both hands and knees in the grass.
I start to yell, “You can’t—” but my words are cut off when a spray of freezing water hits me square in the jaw. I fall back on my butt.