Forever After (Post Apocalyptic Romance Boxed Set)

by Rose Francis

  She peeked over the edge of the ledge to be sure. It was Tyson. She checked the door, which was shut—which meant he wasn't helping the Engineers track them down, for money or to save himself.

  “Sorry about that,” Tyson said, and helped Brant to his feet. “Been scavenging so long, I forget my strength sometimes, back in the world. I'm a friend of Christine's. This rat sold her out, and sold her out again when I asked where she might run. You a friend of Christine's? ‘Cause if you are, we probably got reason to keep him away from the Engineers in the interim. You got some rope?”

  “I don't what you're talking about,” Brant said. “But I don't know no girl by the name of Christine.”

  “That's funny,” he said, “because your wife's got her kid dangling off her titty.”

  “That's my sister, and I'd take kindly to you not staring at her titty. Or the Johnson's kid.”

  “The Johnson's kid? You know how rare those blue eyes of his are? Just like her momma's.”

  “Christine doesn't have blue eyes,” Brant said.

  “Christine ain't the momma—not the birth one, anyhow, though she was the one who had blue eyes.”

  “You're an idiot,” Christine said. She stepped slowly down the stairs. “You couldn't keep your story that you didn't know me straight for five flipping minutes. And where were you?” she asked Tyson.

  “I was detained. By Engineers. One of them fingered me for associating with you.”

  “I hope he was gentle.”

  “It wasn't enough of a certainty to keep. But what the hell happened?”

  “They got Ilsa.”

  “Shit.”

  “But I've got a plan. A crazy, desperate one.”

  “I'm with you.”

  “It's practically a suicide mission,” she said.

  “I've known that from the moment I left the Mercury with you.”

  “Shit,” Brant said, “wouldn't be the first near-suicidal thing we done together.”

  “I'm in, too,” DuMonte said from the floor.

  “You sure that ain't just because you were worried I wanted that rope for your neck?” Tyson asked.

  “I hadn't worried that until now,” he said. “There may be no honor amongst thieves, but Christine will tell you, I fenced; I never thieved. I was pressed to give up your friend. They watch the clinic. If I hadn't turned them in, my other patients would—”

  “Fine,” Tyson said. “But if you're lying, if you do a single duplicitous thing, I'll snap your neck. But I won't finish it. You'll die slow, writhing in fucking agony at my feet. And you'll spend your last few minutes not knowing if killing you was enough—or if I'll have rage left to put into Martine. But,” he said, “if you're on the level, we're clear. I don't so much as pop you in the other eye, and the girl never sees my face.”

  “Your interpersonal skills are sorely lacking,” DuMonte muttered. “But consider it an accord. And to show my good faith, I know why Aureum wants the child. Benito is dying.”

  “That gossip's all over town,” Brant complained.

  “It is. But not how he hopes to stave it off. His son. His blood is fresh, pure, and rejuvenating. If they were to share blood, Benito would get years back—long enough for the child's organs to grow big enough for harvest. Benito wants a whole new set.”

  “It's not like there's a fucking shortage?” Tyson and Brant gave her a questioning look.

  “So you did escape through the organ farm. I hadn't believed that,” DuMonte said. “But Benito's condition is harrowing. His organs aren't failing one after another—entire organ systems are failing together. And every organ transplant comes with the risk of rejection. Entire systems all but guarantee it. And he isn't well enough to survive a single rejection. It has to go flawlessly, or he's a dead man.”

  “So that was why he was manipulating Ilsa's son. He needed as close to a genetic clone as he could get.” Her eyes narrowed at DuMonte. “How do you know this?” Christine asked.

  “Doctors talk. Martine gave advice on another doctor's opinion. She thinks it's madness. The doctor she was consulting with seemed to agree. But a dying man is a desperate one, so the measures, even for a fleeting chance, that he might pursue are dire. But there is another.

  “When the mother and his son went missing, he took such a measure, raped one of the other servant girls during her time. They paid the family to keep it quiet. Paid a fortune more for the child when it hatches, and for access to 'manipulate' it, as you put it. But the word is, he won't survive long enough to collect.”

  “It's a start,” Christine said.

  “A start?” he said, and the word caught somewhere between a gasp and a chuckle.

  “For the rest of your forgiveness, I want you to fetch the demolitionist.”

  “And you can't get her yourself?”

  “We don't get along,” Christine said.

  “She's a nutter. Does she get along with anyone?”

  “She gets enough along with most people that she hasn't left bombs attached to their doors.”

  “She's got several places at the edge of the fog. Who knows which one she'll be in?”

  “She'll be in whichever one is the least clouded,” Christine said. “And I didn't ask if you know, I told you to find out.”

  “And if she won't come?”

  “Tell her it's for Aureum. She'll come.”

  Thirty

  Ilsa felt better than she had in ages. When the Engineers chased after Christine, the doctor told her to run. But she remembered not understanding the word. She could barely stand, and needed Christine's help to walk. How could she run?

  When the doctor understood that, she set to work on Ilsa. She removed bits of broken-down placenta from her and gave her several medicines.

  When the Engineers returned, and demanded custody of her, the doctor turned towards them. “I am in the middle of a delicate procedure to save this young woman's life. I assume your orders are still to procure the woman alive? Or would you prefer to explain to Aureum why she died because you couldn't wait fifteen minutes?”

  The Engineer couldn't even form a response, just nodded and waited patiently. Ilsa could see an old, damaged clock from where she laid. It was nearly an hour before the doctor released her. She wasn't sure if she had lied to the Engineer, or was simply punishing him for his impertinence before.

  And she had slept. On a bed. She was certain it was in a cell, but there a mattress, and a blanket and a pillow, and for the first time in weeks she had been able to enjoy their softness. Muddled conversations permeated her thoughts, queries about the purity of her breast milk, whether it could fetch a good price, contaminated or no. She rolled over as she felt a strange hand, much larger than Christine's, on her breast. It was a strange dream, but after the Hals she'd seen, it was hardly something to be concerned with.

  She was in good spirits when an Engineer plucked her from her cell and led her down a dark hallway to a chair that reminded her of the one in the doctor's office. She remembered cleaning Christine's gunshot. That cut her. She missed Christine and her baby. But at least with Christine on her side, she felt confident Benito would never get her son.

  The Engineer strapped her into the chair, and then left. Though the room was dark, save for an orange glow coming from the corner, from a stove, if she was seeing it correctly bolted in like she was. One of the coals lifted out of the stove. No, not a coal—a poker, orange from the heat of the flames.

  It raised to eye level, and from its glow, she recognized Benito. A tiny part of her warmed anew, reflecting on the gentle touches and stolen glances of their early courtship. But the little flicker died as a spasm of pain tore through her stomach, so strong, and yet so much weaker than what he had done to her. Her muscles tensed as the fear overtook her, and she forced herself to calmness, refused to let him know her thoughts.

  He was fatter, and his hair had thinned more than the simple recession from when she knew him. His skin was sallow, and hung from his bones in a way that remind
ed her of the old beggar women who lived, but more frequently died, by the charity of others.

  “I've always wanted to dabble in sadomasochism,” Benito said. “It probably isn't a healthy urge, largely because I don't want to ask for consent first. Which perhaps pushes my desires past the sexual entirely; maybe I've just always wanted to torture people. But before now, I've never had a reason like the one you've given me. But I'd like to think I'm a fair man. So I'll give you one opportunity to avoid any unnecessary...discomfort. Answer this question to my satisfaction, and I'll let you go. Where is my son?”

  “You haven't got a son,” she said defiantly.

  “The Engineers saw him, so I know he survived his birth. And I watched you carefully,” he said. “I'm no cuckhold. Or was your purpose to unman me, and say I've earned no claim to my own genetic heritage? Because possession is nine-tenths of the world—and he will be mine.

  “From childhood, I enjoyed vivisection. Insects and sometimes rats were my usual quarry, largely because of their availability. Few would stoop to cultivate them when presented with the opportunity to acquire a dog or rabbit, but they could be bought even with my meager allowance.

  “My mother believed me unwell. My father believed I had a scientific brain. I see them both as having equal claim to being right. But in either case, they both agreed that the solution was to get me a puppy.

  “They left me alone with the dog, to get acquainted, they thought. When they returned home, I had moved most of its entrails outside its body. A body can withstand all manner of transplantation, so long as you don't sever the connections between organ systems. The digestive system gives the most rope, as it were, because of the length of the tract.

  “My parents came home from a movie, perhaps dinner, dressed in their finery. The maid was unconscious; I had given her double what I gave the dog, though father never guessed. He beat her for her indiscretion.

  “Mother shrieked at me. I convinced them I didn't understand, that I thought the dog was merely to be a continuation of my experiments—that the promise of the rat I dissected and showed them intrigued them, as well. I lied.

  “There was a certain curiosity inside me, when I first pushed a blade through a beetle's belly. But it wasn't the greenish paste that poured from the hole that made me return, again and again, it was the way its little legs reanimated. I watched it try desperately to dislodge the implement, despite the knife being a dozen times its own weight. It fought and struggled against gravity, against inevitability. It danced for me, when moments before it feigned death.

  “I think my mother came to understand me, because she was the one who told of the evil that lurked within men, and the fact that if they showed it, women could never love them.

  “I never divulged my desire for something harder from you. You were a delicate flower; telling you the truth would not have gotten what I wanted from you.”

  Ilsa tried to hide the hurt in her eyes, but she was overwhelmed.

  He laughed at her. “No. You weren't simply another conquest. You were ripe.” She frowned, not understanding. “I'm dying. My blood is spoilt. But our son's blood could save me.” She recoiled in horror. “Not all of it,” he soothed. “A few drops is all I'd need to purify my blood.”

  She didn't believe him, and didn't respond. He touched her cheek. “The world has hardened you to a desert rose—a flower no less beautiful, but far more hardy. Which for you, presents a conundrum. Because now, torture will get me exactly what I want, and I no longer have a reason not to engage in it.”

  He set the iron back in the fire.

  “Except that I question the hunger it might awaken in me. No one would weep to find your mutilated corpse in the street—not even that urchin you've become so fond of.”

  Ilsa remained silent. He wanted a rise out of her. She wasn’t giving it to him.

  “Did you know the both of you are up for execution? Society grinds to a halt when entire handfuls of her Engineers turn up dead. I suspect only a few could be attributed to your little friend. Some fell from the hostility of the Foundation. The rest likely from those who realized suddenly that our Engineers could be killed. The people are angry. On every level. Engineers are the builders of our utopia, molding us into a sum greater than our disparate elements. You've shaken our very foundations.”

  Ilsa bit her lip. Christine would have friends who might help. She had Azure, if nothing else. Perhaps Christine's friends would watch Azure long enough for Christine to come sweep her away.

  “But I have power. I could sate the people's lust for blood. I could even grant you both a place in my household, protection, and food for as long as I live.”

  “No,” Ilsa said, “you wouldn't.”

  “No,” he said, and sauntered back to the fire. “The world has baked away the imperfection of your innocence,” he said, and retrieved his poker, burning as bright as it had in its first moment. “But you'll find wisdom is not always a virtue. As now. It will only bring you more pain.”

  There was a knock at the door. The Engineer from before entered and handed Benito a note.

  “What in the fuck is this?” Benito raged, crinkling the wadded page in his hand.

  “Well, I'd suggest that you either read it, or hold it out so I can read it for you. Or we may never know.” Ilsa spared a satisfied smirk. She still cringed inside to speak to him so, but the greater part of her rejoiced to cause even a moment of agitation.

  He backhanded her with his fist still closed around the note. “Your precious Christine has offered a trade. The child's life for your own.”

  “No!” Ilsa cried out, and tried to attack him, Wild fury coursed through her, but she was too weak and the restraints were too strong.

  “But she has.” He held out the page to her long enough for her to read through it. “I'd still like to torture you, but for the moment, I think you'll be tortured enough to know that your friend betrayed you at her first opportunity. And that it won't save either of you. I'll have them bring in a second chair, so the pair of you can scream together.” He shoved the poker into the stove and left.

  * * *

  Outside the door, the Engineer paused. “Should I put the captive in irons?” he asked Benito.

  “That's the mother of my child—call a whore a whore.”

  “Sir?”

  “Leave her there, Gauck. We're not taking her,” he said. “We're not trading a damned thing. We'll snatch the cunt. If she has the child with her, then we're done. If not, we torture the both of them until they tell us where he is.”

  “Are you certain that's wise, sir?”

  “I'm certain they're both treacherous,” he said. “And I'm certain they want to fuck me. So we're going to fuck them, first.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gauck said. “How many men should I gather?”

  “All of them. The note demanded we clear our people out of the shipping district. Nonnegotiable, and the Engineers are too conspicuous; we'll make a very public show of pulling them out. And I'll need your best men to go into the district in plainclothes, insinuate themselves strategically. How long will that take?”

  “Getting the message to the patrols will take the longest. Three hours should do.”

  “You've got two and a half until. So don't walk.”

  Benito waited until the Engineer rounded the corner before he let go of his breath. The force of exhaling necessitated holding the wall for stability. He wasn't well. He needed that child.

  Thirty-One

  Benito was flanked on either side by a dozen Engineers. There were thirty more within earshot, a score watching every possible exit, including the elevator shaft Christine had escaped down the day before. Benito had paid a welder to burn the cable out of the shaft as a precaution. He wasn't fucking with these bitches any longer.

  He checked his pocket watch. It had been his father's. He hid it in his palm as he looked. He didn't want the Engineers to see that it was only made of silver.

  The girl was late. He wasn't surp
rised. The lower classes stayed lower because they didn't understand the value of time, and of timing. He was annoyed. It was costing him a month's worth of Engineer pay for every hour the Engineers were working for him alone. It wasn't much, compared against his family's hoard, but it was enough the loss stung.

  Benito saw a woman wrapped in rags approach from the alley; she had something wrapped in cloth, clung close to her chest. The alley was usually guarded by Engineers, but they had pulled them back, so as not to telegraph the dimensions of the trap. He held up his hand, and the Engineers staid theirs, until she was out in the open of the courtyard. The Engineers looped around behind her to prevent her from leaving.

  She noticed and moved a little faster.

  “Halt,” Gauck said, stepping from the ranks.

  She feigned ignorance, and tried to dash down another alley, only to run into still another Engineer. On impact, she dropped the swaddling clothes she was holding. Benito watched in slow motion as they fell, imagining his son's fragile organs bursting on impact with the cobblestones, rupturing blood and entrails.

  But it landed quietly and bounced. He walked slowly to the wrapped item and picked it up. It was a loaf of bread she had clung to her breast. He tore off a hunk and put it into his mouth.

  “My grand-children need that bread,” she protested. Her wrappings asunder, he saw her proximity to her own mortality screaming through the lines in her skin and the fading color of her hair.

  He took another bite, this one directly off the end, then threw the rest of the loaf into a stagnant puddle of water collecting in the street. “They need their grandmother to shut up. You can always get another loaf of bread. They can't quite so easily procure another matriarch.”

  “Sir!” an Engineer yelled. Benito recognized the direction of the commotion, towards the elevators. He and Gauck turned in that direction.

  Engineers were beginning to gather around the elevator shaft, and he could hear them murmuring. “Back to your posts,” he said. “I'm not paying you to gawp at—”