by Ava Sinclair
“You think you can beat my sister and get away with it?”
“Is it any different than what you do on Paternas?”
I shake him like a rag doll until he’s cowering. “It’s a lot different. Correction on Paternas is never delivered in anger. It’s delivered in love. If Kit ever looked at me the way Felicia looks at you, with the same expression of hopelessness and fear, I couldn’t call myself a man.”
“Ah, yes. Your Kit.” Marcus starts to laugh. “Your little rebel bitch. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing up there. Matron Blunt has been reporting to me. You’re supposed to be teaching discipline up there, not undermining the Patriarchy by coddling a bunch of rebels and misfits. I’m going to expose you, Roman. I know what’s happening there. I suspect that’s why you hired away Linda Lang to serve as matron. Uppity bitch. Do you know she actually had the nerve to turn me down?”
This time, the blow that lands on Marcus’ face breaks his nose. I raise my hand once more only to feel it caught in mid-air.
“Roman, stop! What’s going on here?”
I drop Marcus to the floor and turn to face my father, who is looking around in confusion. My brother-in-law scrambles to his feet, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to stanch the flow of blood.
“I’ll tell you what he’s doing here,” he says. “Roman’s a subversive.”
“That’s nonsense.” My father glares at my brother-in-law.
“Gareth…” Marcus grows earnest. “Paternas is violating the Patriarchal Doctrine.”
“Paternas is adhering to it,” I retort, then turn to my father. “We’re supposed to be the protectors of our women. Did you know that Marcus has been beating Felicia?”
“Beating her?” My father’s tone is incredulous. “These are serious charges you level against one another.”
“I can back mine up.” I pull my CommuniPort from my pocket. “After I talked to my sister, I downloaded the conversation.” I had the CommuniPort to my father, grabbing Marcus by the collar as he lunges for it. My father turns away, his eyes on the screen. He shakes his head as he watches our exchange.
“This can’t be,” he says when it’s over.
“But it is.” A soft voice comes from behind us. My sister enters the room. Tears are streaming down her face. “He hit me. It wasn’t the first time. That day it was for not wanting fertility boosters. When the maid he hired to spy on me told him, he hit me again before calling a doctor he’s been paying off to mend my injuries.”
My father walks over. “How could I have not known?” He stares down his son-in-law, his expression thunderous. “I’ll see you ruined for this, Marcus!”
“Me? Are you not listening? I was doing what a husband is supposed to do—keeping order!”
“Order?” Felicia, emboldened by our support, walks over to her husband. She’s shaking with anger. “There’s no order in this house, Marcus. Only fear! It’s a living hell. And now you would force me to bear children into it if you could.” She shakes her head. “You fool. If you were half the man my brother is, I’d happily follow you anywhere. But I hate you, Marcus. I hate you with all my heart.” She addresses our father now. “I want out of this marriage. I don’t care what the law says.”
“The law will be changed, I promise,” I tell my sister. “No woman in New Bethel will be forced to live with a man who hurts her.”
“He’s changing things already. Can’t you see it? He’s going to ruin what we’ve built!” Marcus tries one final appeal to my father, but he’s looking at his only daughter.
“This isn’t what we built.” As he speaks the words, two guards come in. “Arrest Senator Thane under orders of the Patriarchal Elders.” As her husband is pulled away, Felicia turns to our father.
“Thank you,” she says.
“Forgive me, Felicia.” My father is close to tears. “If I had known sooner, I’d have helped you. I have failed you. What use is a daddy if he doesn’t protect his little girl?
What use is a daddy if he doesn’t protect his little girl?
“Roman, where are you going?” Felicia calls to me as I start to leave.
I turn back. “I have to get back to Kit,” I say. “If Matron Blunt is answering to Marcus, and I’m not there to protect her, she’s in danger.”
“Go to her, Roman.” Felicia smiles through her tears. “Save her.”
Twenty
Kit
I’ve been moved from my room. I’m in another one now. The walls are plain white. The only furnishings are a chair and a bed with a metal frame. The mattress is hard, and I have only a thin blanket to cover myself from the cold blast of air that blows down from above.
“A room fit for a rebel,” Matron Blunt had said. An hour after gleefully delivering her devastating news, she’d come to move me here.
What’s going to happen to me? The question was on the tip of my tongue, but I wasn’t about to ask it. To do so would mean I was putting my destiny in this evil woman’s hands. I told myself I wouldn’t do that.
I’m not done fighting.
But I am done feeling.
I suppose you enjoyed yourself while it lasted, the matron had said. And I had. No one had made me feel like Roman did. And no one will again. The pain of losing him reminds me of why I taught myself not to cry. The pain of truth is just too great, too crippling. Perhaps Matron Blunt is right. Paternas is no place for a woman like me.
Matron Blunt forcefully stripped me of my pretty dress. She jerked the barrette from my hair before throwing a simple white shift at me and telling me to either don it or go naked.
Breakfast wasn’t strawberries, but dry toast and weak tea. The fighter in me forced it down and afterwards I lay on the bed staring at the wall. When I hear someone outside the door, I sit up warily.
A matron comes in, one I’ve never seen. She’s middle-aged, her hooked nose and long face making her seem like an ill-tempered bird. She pockets her pass card and pulls out the same kind of bands the snaggers used to restrain me after capture.
“I’m to take you to the toilet and then to stand guard outside your door. If you try anything, you’ll be sorry.” She walks to the middle of the room. “Get up, come over here, and put out your hands.”
I sit up. “Where’s Matron Lang.”
“Fired. She’ll be out of here by the end of the day.” The new matron flashes an ugly smile. “Now stand up, or I’ll be forced to use the new toy Matron Blunt gave me.” She pulls a stick from her pocket and puts her finger on the button by the base. “A shock from this and I won’t have to take you to the toilet because you’ll piss yourself.”
“Please don’t hurt me, Matron.” I make my voice as small as possible, as small as I feel. It’s not hard. My anger dwarfs me now. It’s bursting from me. I’m five paces away when I grab the chair and swing.
This matron is not as quick as Senator Daley. The blow knocks her legs out from under her. The stick flies from her hands and I grab it, putting it to her back as I push the button. She jerks from the shock and I jump back as a puddle of piss soaks her gray uniform.
“You were right,” I say, and lean down over the moaning, immobilized woman to grab her pass cards.
I leave the room, looking left and right, to find the hall clear. Then I shut the door, locking her in. I have no idea where I’m going to go. I just know I’m leaving, and I’m determined not to be taken back to Paternas alive.
Twenty-One
Roman
I’ve set a trap for Matron Blunt. My hope is that it will preserve Kit’s safety while ensuring I catch Marcus’ accomplice in the act of defying my authority.
I took Marcus’ CommuniPort from the hall table before leaving his house. As soon as I set course for Paternas, I log on using the government ID and read the messages that he and the Head Matron had passed back and forth up to this point.
I’m furious to confirm they’ve been conspiring against me. Matron Blunt accused me of being progressive in my management style, citin
g my reaction to her taking Kit through the drift field as an example. Marcus had assured her that when I am out of the way, he’ll give her free rein to run Paternas as she desires.
My case against both of them is strong, but so is my worry for Kit. Posing as Marcus, I message her from his device.
Matron Blunt, it’s been handled. I’m on my way to Paternas.
Excellent, Senator Thane. I have the rebel secure in a proper cell. Any instructions?
Keep her there.
I click off, staving off queasiness as the shuttle clears Earth’s air space and accelerates towards Paternas.
If Kit is in a cell, that means she’s safe. I regret not telling her where I was going and hope she will forgive me. I can’t wait to hold her in my arms again.
I have a new sense of hope that bringing change to New Bethel will not be as hard as I thought, nor as dangerous. I know it will not happen overnight; there are still plenty of leaders who hold the same hard line as Marcus. But my father wields substantial influence. Learning that his daughter was abused by Marcus, a man who championed legalistic order has him realizing how a lack of respect for women is poisoning a utopian vision.
The couples from Paternas will be the examples, the leading edge of change. I will forge that change with Kit at my side.
The return trip seems to drag by, and I sigh with relief when the shuttle rises above the planetoid’s green surface to fly over the carefully planned center of Paternas. I sit back in my seat as the ship hovers over the bay doors that open to the subterranean level.
I stare out the windows as I the shuttle docks. The tinted glass affords no view of the inside, so while Matron Blunt can’t see me, I can see her. She’s walking out onto the platform, her broad chest puffed out like a general. Other matrons, their eyes downcast, follow behind her. She is a miserable woman, and on her face I see hunger for official permission to vent her cruelty on others.
I wait until she is standing in front of the bay door, her hands behind her back, her booted feet planted slightly apart, to lower the ramp. I rise from my chair, and as the ramp descends, I realize this is the first time I’ve ever enjoyed seeing her unpleasant face.
The look of shock, confusion, and then dread is satisfying.
“Senator Daley.” Her tongue seems to stumble over my name. She looks past me hopefully, as if Marcus may emerge to salvage the situation.
“You were expecting someone else, Matron? Senator Thane, perhaps?” “I’m afraid he’s been detained on a variety of charges. Abuse of a spouse. Battery.” I pause. “Sedition.”
“Sedition?” The word comes out as a squeak.
“But don’t worry. You’ll be seeing him soon enough.” When she stares at me dumbly, I pull out my CommuniPort and push a button that summons two large security agents. She begins to shake her head as they approach.
“No!” As the guards reach for her, she begins to flay her arms, shaking them off. I nod for them to overpower her, and they do. “No! What are you doing? You can’t..don’t…let me go!”
“Now, now, Matron Blunt. We must submit to authority. Isn’t this what you have been preaching?” I turn away. “Put her on the ship. They’re awaiting her at the New Bethel Detention Center.”
All the other matrons are staring. I note first uncertainty, then relief in their faces as they watch the former Head Matron being taken away, screaming all the while.
I call out above her cries. “Where is Matron Lang?”
The other matrons look at one another. “She’s in the office waiting transport. She’s been terminated.”
“Wrong,” I say. “She’s being promoted. Someone fetch her.”
Two matrons scurry off to obey. I pace eagerly back and forth, eater to install Linda in her new position so I can learn where Kit has been placed.
When Linda comes in, it’s clear she’s been crying, but relief has replaced upset now that she sees me. I can tell she wants to hug me, but instead she stops a few feet from where I stand.
“Matron Lang. I need a new Head Matron. There’s a lot of work to be done. I have a lot of plans. The post is yours if you want it.”
“I…of course,” she stammers, then smiles. “Of course.”
“Excellent.” I smile. “Now where’s my little one?”
“Matron Blunt intercepted me before I could see her. I was told Kit has been put in one of the holding rooms on Level 2.”
I’m already on my way before she finishes the sentence, racing towards the room.
“Kit! Kit!” When I’m outside the door, I slip in my pass card and open the door. My heart is in my throat. On the floor is a dazed matron, curled into a fetal position. The chair is slung across the room.
There is no sign of my little girl.
Twenty-Two
Kit
I’m careful, taking stock of where I’m going. Around every corner, I expect to see a matron or a guard. I keep my hearing tuned to sounds, listening for footfalls.
The floor seems to be used exclusively for holding new arrivals. It’s quiet now and apparently unmonitored, which is a blessing. Eventually, the hallways lead to what I’m searching for. The elevator.
I don’t know where I’ll go once I’m out. The only thing that’s certain is that they’ll be coming for me. And then? I don’t know. I think of the drift fields, of the woman there who looked like me. With Matron Blunt in charge, how long will it take her to make good on her threat? It’s one thing to get her in trouble, but to defy her by escaping?
I sink down onto the floor, trying not to stave off the dizziness as the elevator drops then zooms towards the outside, towards freedom. When it stops, I rise to shaky legs, hoping the steady enough for me to run.
As the door opens the light flooding in from the outside brings back the memory of the first time I saw this view, and for an instant I feel as if I turned, I’d see him standing there, the man who pretended to love me.
How could I have been so stupid? I’d asked myself more than once what a man like him would want with a woman from the Warrens. In her cruel way, Matron Blunt had answered my question, but she is no crueler than the man who made sport of breaking me in the most hurtful way imaginable.
I step into the grass, not caring that I have no shoes. My heart is hammering in my chest. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what lies beyond Paternas. I don’t care. All I know is that I want to get as far from here as I can.
Keeping my gaze fixed on a distant hill, I begin to run, frustrated as I realize that my new life has softened and slowed me a bit. But then I hear a noise that fills me with renewed vigor. There’s no mistaking the sound of a shuttle.
They’re coming for me. I run faster, gasping as I take air into my lungs.
I glance back, seeing the glint of silver.
No! No! No!
I dive down into the grass. In my side vision I can see that the vessel is passing me. Is it possible I wasn’t spotted? I stand back up looking right and left. The hill is still so far away. And the shuttle is turning back. I’ve been discovered.
I have no choice to hold my ground. Bending into a crouch, I hold the shock stick out in front of me. The shuttle has stopped, the door opening. When I see who steps out, I hear my own gasp.
“No,” I say. “Stay away from me. I’m not going back!”
Twenty-Three
Roman
I didn’t have to guess where she would go. Of course she’d go outside. It’s where Kit is the happiest. I was filled with relief to see her sprinting through the grass, her hair flowing behind her. But the look on her face is unexpected.
“Kit, it’s me.” I step from the shuttle, but when I approach her, she moves into a crouch, backing away. She’s holding something, and I’m sickened to see it’s a shock stick. I don’t have to guess that she took it from the matron she overpowered. I feel sick with anger.
“You left me.” Kit’s words bring me back to the present.
“Kit, I had to go home…”
/> “So she was right?”
“Who?”
“Matron Blunt. She said you left me.”
It dawns on me now what’s happened. “No, Kit. No. I take a step towards her, but she backs away, holding the stick out. “Kit, I only went home to help my sister. She was in trouble.”
She stares at me. “You have a sister?”
“Yes. A twin. Felicia. I’m should have told you, but it was an emergency. I had no time.”
“Don’t apologize,” she says. “You did what you were supposed to do. You went to help your sister. Let me go back. I want to help mine, too.”
“Kit…I’ve already told you the best way to help is by being here, with me.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I don’t belong here. Matron Blunt is right. I’m a rebel. I’ll always be a rebel. Take me home.”
“You are home. Drop your weapon, Kit.” I nod towards her hand. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Matron Blunt is a liar and a sadist and you’ll never see her again.”
I hold out my hand and take another step towards her. “Kit, come to me.”
She backs away. “I’m afraid.”
I can see both fear and strain on her face. She wants to cry but is already walling herself off.
“I am, too,” I say.
“You?” She shakes her head. “What are you afraid of?”
“You don’t think daddies can be afraid? Oh, how wrong you are. I’m terrified, Kit. I’m terrified of returning to a world where no one understands love, where women like my sister are trained to obey men who never earn it. I’m terrified of losing you, of losing what we have.” She is staring at me. The raised hand at her side begins to lower ever so slowly, but still I don’t move. “Come back to me, little one. Daddy needs you.”