And she had more hands to play, more stakes to put on the table, not the least of which was her own life. And she knew that the end game was about to begin.
They reached an elevator and they stepped in. Jeanell said, “No polyurethane walls for the chancellor, I guess.”
“The chancellor needs privacy.”
“Unlike everybody else.”
Brad chuckled. “This is the seat of power, Jeanell. Extra security is required.”
Jeanell said, “Lead-lined walls, keep the holes out.”
“Precisely. That landing platform in the lobby is just about the only place a hole can open up in this tower.”
“While the chancellor goes around sucking up stadiums full of people?”
Brad huffed. “Another lie. That’s the, um, the kill hole theory, I take it?” Jeanell nodded, but Brad shook his head. “Pure propaganda.”
“Why would they lie to me about something like that?”
“To keep you on their side, or rather to keep you away from the chancellor. You could do great things together, Jeanell.” Jeanell’s blood ran cold and she knew where Brad was headed with their conversation. He went on, “I hope you’ll at least give the most powerful person in the world a fair hearing.”
“I… I’m supposed to meet this chancellor?”
“Probably. I don’t know what those rebels told you, but you really are famous in this age, Jeanell. You’re considered one of history’s great geniuses.”
“I don’t really know much,” Jeanell said. “All this technology, they developed it after we… were brought here. I’d say almost anybody in the field today knows more about it than I do. You were the one panicking and throwing every switch on the board, Brad. If either of us knows anything, it’d be you!”
Brad chuckled, shaking his head and not even wasting the words to contradict her. The elevator doors opened. Brad and Jeanell walked into another long, golden hallway, light glaring and burning Jeanell’s eyes. Brad said, “Some people find it ostentatious, but I like it.”
“Guess I have simpler tastes.”
They walked down the hall to the office at the end, where an armed guard stood. Brad and Jeanell stepped past them and into the big office. More gold, more chandeliers, and behind a massive gold desk sat a bony-faced man, white in middle age, wearing a smart black and red uniform with gold buttons and military insignia.
He stood up and crossed from behind the desk. “Jeanell Glenn, I presume, even lovelier than I’d heard.”
“Chancellor… Kana, is it?”
“Oh my, no. The chancellor’s floor is just above. I’m Vice Chancellor Lionel Haines, welcome to the chancellor’s tower. Welcome also… to the future.”
“Um, Mr. Vice Chancellor, I… I don’t exactly how to say this, but… I’m not really Jeanell Glenn.”
Vice Chancellor Haines said, “I beg your pardon?”
Brad shook his head. “She’s lying—”
“We, me and Brad and Reeves and Tony Mathers, and a woman, Dr. Ali Chang, we migrated in from Idaho. We were just going to join Ric’s enclave here, consolidate our little population, so to speak. Then your men attacked us and we ran.”
The vice chancellor said, “Miss Glenn, we have sensitive equipment that monitors time travel—”
“But that’s just it. Nobody can travel through time, it’s strictly forbidden. The technology doesn’t exist, the chancellor won’t allow it to exist. And as you know, nothing the chancellor disallows goes on for very long.”
Brad said, “That’s just absurd. Why would I lie?”
“To your new masters? I can’t imagine. How badly did they torture the others?”
“What, torture?” Brad said. “Nah, it’s not like that.”
Jeanell said, “But of course you’d lie to save yourself. I’ll bet Tony said more or less the same thing.”
“He did,” Vice Chancellor Haines said.
“And what kind of promotion did he get?”
Brad said, “Angel, First Class, shot while trying to… escape.”
The vice chancellor said to Jeanell, “You realize that if what you’re saying is true, I have no reason to keep you alive even a moment longer?”
Jeanell knew it all too well; that was her gambit. It was the only way to stave off torture and probably cracking under pressure, revealing the secrets that could undo the entire human race. But Jeanell quickly realized she could play more than one gambit at a time. And this was a gambit she could never have played before and gotten away with it.
She smiled sexily, looking Haines over. He was lean, shoulders straight, hollow faced. She said, “There’s a lot a girl like me could do for a powerful man like you, Vice Chancellor. I’ve seen those rebel girls, and not one would be up to the task of pleasing you, sir.”
“What would I want with a rebel girl?”
Jeanell smiled. “That would depend on which rebel girl you’re talking about.”
Brad looked on, admiration for her cunning clear in his beady eyes.
But Vice Chancellor Haines only broke a knowing little smile of his own. “On the one hand, Miss Glenn, I’m the second most powerful man in the world, second only to the chancellor himself. I can have any woman I desire, and I do.”
Jeanell shot him a pouty, sexy look. “You don’t want me, or… desire me?”
He looked her up and down, shapely under her soiled white clothes. “Perhaps if we cleaned you up a bit.” He said to Brad, “Make… our guest comfortable in the suite the chancellor set aside for… for Miss Glenn.” He turned back to Jeanell. “There you’ll find a private bath, new clothes in the closet… ” He returned her look with a hardened glance of his own before adding, “… a bed, very comfortable. I’ll let you know when I’ve made my plans.”
Brad stepped back and gestured toward the door, Jeanell walking past him without a word of parting to the vice chancellor. She knew he was watching her ass as she walked out, and she gave it an extra little bit of sway before Brad followed her out of the office and closed the door behind him.
Walking down the hall, Brad said, “That was very clever, Jeanell. I’m impressed. But honestly, I think you’re taking the wrong tactic. Just play ball, like I’m doing. In the long run, you’ll be a lot better off, we all will.”
But Jeanell said nothing, strongly suspecting that the hallway was bugged, and that Brad was just trying to trick her into revealing herself to some hidden camera or microphone or nearby drone picking up everything.
Jeanell knew she’d have to be very careful of everything and everyone. She was in the dragon’s lair, and she’d need all her wiles and skills to make it out alive, if that was even possible.
Once in her private suite, guarded by a single armed guard, Jeanell drew a hot bath. She peeled off her soiled outfit and climbed into the tub, the water hot was soothing. Her limbs ached, skin tingled as she dragged a bar of translucent soap over her arms and legs. She looked around at the incredible surroundings, every fixture was gold, every light crystal. She caught a glimpse of herself in the full-wall mirror. With her short, black hair and green eyes, luxuriating in a golden bathtub, Jeanell looked and felt like an entirely different person; another time, another place, another person.
Jeanell couldn’t deny the attraction of all that comfort and wealth. Garish though it was, it was certainly a striking contrast to living in a cave in the woods, or underground in some dank, dusty, disused particle collider compound.
If it weren’t for the murders and the corruption, Jeanell couldn’t help but think, this might not be half bad. Can it be that the rebels really were lying, that there were no kill holes at all? And the rest, the electromagnetic pulse bomb, maybe that’s all a lie too? But the new infrastructure, the sparsity of the population, something must have happened, something drastic.
But Jeanell only had to review the information she’d been given to see the secret truth.
There could have been a bomb, the Gre
at Darkness, but that doesn’t mean this chancellor knew anything about it, not that anybody can seem to prove. Can it be that it’s just too easy to assume he knew about it? That is just a group of rebels would want me to think. But… why? Because they know the truth about us, about me.
And they were about to kill me for it, Jeanell had to remind herself, about to kill us all. I saw that for myself! This vice chancellor, even Brad, creepy as he is, I don’t know that anybody’s been hurt here.
What about the people in that disco in Prague? They were kill holed!
Weren’t they?
Jeanell thought back, suddenly unsure what she’d seen in that scramble and flash and heated craziness.
What about Brooke and the twins and Reeves? They’ve been captured too. The chancellor’s forces got them in the cave just before we arrived, they must have. And Brad was there, waiting to grab me, just as he did! So if Brooke and the twins are okay, maybe I really need to re-evaluate things.
What about Tony, Jeanell had to remind herself, killed while trying to escape? And what about this vice chancellor and his lusty grin?
Well, Jeanell had to admit, that was the gambit I started, can’t blame him for reacting that way. I would have been a little offended if he hadn’t! And Tony, who knows? He may have been shot trying to escape, but this is a locked facility. He may have panicked, somebody else may have panicked. That happened all the time back in 2017.
But then there’s Brad grabbing me in front of the cave, taking me against my will. Is that the work of a regime that can be trusted? A kidnapping! That’s the work of the kind of regime that would have kill holes, and use them in any terrible way it saw fit.
Then again, Brad did see Ric almost murder me with a sledgehammer, and that was the last he saw. Maybe he thought he was rescuing me. Maybe, in truth, he was.
No, Jeanell scolded herself, don’t get carried away by all this glamor and wealth and power, this isn’t you!
I am who I say I am, Jeanell countered. And wasn’t I carried away by my feelings for Ric? What makes that any more grounded than this?
Ric.
I thought he loved me, but could he have been lying to me the whole time, putting up some act just to win my heart and keep me with him? I thought I was becoming so sophisticated, but it could be I was still the naive bookworm I always was. Ric would have to know what would have been available to me, a life I could never live anywhere else or at any other time. I’m famous, I could be wealthy and powerful, the American Dream. What hardscrabble homeless guy wouldn’t be intimidated to have to compete with that?
Jeanell sighed and sank back into the tub. But it felt so real, so pure and true, I can’t believe he’d do that to me. Could I have misread him that drastically? Could I have been so stupid?
Jeanell’s head began to swim while her heart ached, confusion reigning her mind and her soul. She didn’t know who to believe, who to trust, or how to figure out which way to go. It was a matter of life and death, and not just her own.
No, Jeanell told herself, keep a clear head, stay focused. Find out what happened to the others, if they’re still alive. If they’ve been tortured, then Ric was right and this regime isn’t to be trusted, they’re the liars. If the prisoners are okay, Ric was probably playing me for a fool.
And find out quick, before the vice chancellor comes to accept that offer!
There was a tablet in the room, bolted to the wall, and after Jeanell’s bath, she noticed a message to join the vice chancellor for dinner. She chose the most elegant dress hanging in the closet, white and off the shoulders, formfitting with a flattering hem around mid-thigh.
She sat at the end of a long banquet table in another exquisite room, this one long and vacuous, more chandeliers shining, dripping with diamonds.
The vice chancellor sat at the head of the table next to her, still in his uniform. “Are you enjoying your pheasant?”
“Very much so, Mr. Vice Chancellor. The orange sauce is just delicious.”
He smiled, raising a glass of chardonnay. Jeanell did the same, and it was crisp and delicious.
She said, “I can see how a girl could get used to this,” and they shared a chuckle.
“If I may, Miss… I didn’t get your actual name.”
Jeanell smiled. “Let’s just go with Jeanell Glenn, it’s… easier.”
The vice chancellor turned a bit, as if for a better glance at her. “Something in your past? Is that why you were out trolling with the guttersnipes?” Jeanell nodded. “But what could such a pretty thing ever do that would ever be so terrible?”
Jeanell shrugged, another refreshing sip of wine washing down her pheasant. “It’s in the past, let’s just leave it there. Isn’t time traveling strictly forbidden?” She gave him a cagy look and he broke out in a little chuckle.
“Quite so. Strange, then, that your companions would all tell the same story.”
“My companions,” Jeanell repeated. “Is Reeves still… a guest here?”
“Reeves.”
“Yeah, big guy, ex-military, um, African American fellow. Do they use that term these days? Anyway, he’ll stand out around here, you couldn’t miss him. He was at the cave when Brad, um, rescued me.”
Vice Chancellor Haines calmly said, “I don’t know the man.”
Thinking aloud, Jeanell reasoned, “Maybe your guards or officers or whatever picked them up and you haven’t heard? I mean, they were at the cave, and all of them were missing when we returned, but Brad was there waiting for me. So they must have taken the others and waited for me to arrive. What else could have happened?”
The vice chancellor said, “The others?”
“Yeah, a whole passel of, um, guttersnipes. I just assumed they were brought here.”
Vice Chancellor Haines just shrugged. “You think I would sully myself with such interactions, among those dregs? Prisoners? Hardly.”
“So, they would be prisoners, not… not guests, like me?”
Things got tense fast. Vice Chancellor Haines said curtly, “It depends, doesn’t it? You’re here as a guest… for the moment. Now that your story is in question, I only wonder if I should go on trifling with you as a concubine.”
“I… I didn’t mean to offend you, Mr. Vice Chancellor.”
“You travel among criminals, cutthroats.”
“Not anymore, sir.”
The vice chancellor looked her over. “And what is it you did before deciding to come here and sleep your way to the top… before this troubling turn in your darkest past?”
Jeanell hadn’t thought her backstory through that well, so she chuckled nervously to give herself a few creative seconds. “I was raised in Eugene, Oregon, but had a falling out with my family. I met a guy and made my way east toward Colorado.”
“And I suppose the young man is dead now.”
“Um, no. I mean, I don’t know exactly. We separated en route.”
“And how did that happen? I mean, a healthy young man abandons an attractive woman in this day and age? And out in the woods, no less?”
“Well, he… we didn’t really get along, we started to fight. I stormed off in one direction, he went off in the other. After that, we just sort of lost each other. We’d talked about coming to Boulder, so I imagined I might have caught up with him there. But he never turned up.”
“Instead, you fell in with those rebels in the collider.”
Jeanell nodded, relieved that her lie had worked out so well. “Yes, that’s what happened exactly.”
Jeanell cleared her throat. “What is it they used to say? All roads lead to Rome. I guess that’s as true today as it’s ever been.”
“I see.” He took another bite of pheasant, chewing slowly before washing it down with another sip of wine, the only sound the tinkling of the utensils. “Yet you claimed to have immigrated into the state from Idaho, with these other companions of yours.”
Jeanell thought fast. “Yes, that’s right
. My boyfriend, Carl Dennings, and I left Oregon together and broke up in Idaho, where I met up with those others, Brad, Tony. We came to Colorado together. Surely, you didn’t think I trudged all the way from Idaho into Colorado alone? I’m just a girl, after all.”
He smiled at her and Jeanell smiled back, coy and feminine. She now felt a bit more comfortable, more confident.
“Miss Glenn, I must say I find your arrogance admirable. Your performance here is truly beguiling, which makes your previous offer even more tempting.”
Jeanell wasn’t exactly glad to hear it, but was better than the alternative.
“And while I always enjoy a good game of cat and mouse,” Vice Chancellor Haines went on, Jeanell’s heart sinking, blood running cold, “I’m beginning to tire of this one.”
Jeanell wasn’t sure which of her two gambits he referred to. She realized with shocking suddenness that neither one would go well for her, and it wouldn’t take long for one or the other to blow up in her face.
The vice chancellor went on, “You’re lying about your identity and your circumstances. You know how to create a time hole.”
“Of course, I do not,” Jeanell said, hoping to hide the growing fear in her voice. “If that were true, you think I’d go around using my real name? You think I’d be here at all? That’d be nuts!”
“Using the name is suicide anyway. And you lack the resources, clearly; that does not mean you lack the knowledge.”
“But I do lack it. And as for the name, y’know how it is; these days Jeanell Glenn, it’s like, y’know, Jane Doe.”
“Jane Doe?”
“Sure, it’s just kind of generic.” After a skeptical pause, Jeanell went on, “She’s so famous. A girl calls herself Jeanell Glenn, it’s like saying you’re George Washington.”
“Very well then, President Washington, Jane Doe, or Jeanell Glenn, or whatever your name is, we’ll soon discover the truth.” Two men entered from the end of the banquet hall. Jeanell turned back to face the vice chancellor behind them. She didn’t need to ask who the others were, or what they were doing there. Her heart jumped as all possibilities of escape vanished in front of her scrambling brain. There was nothing to say, nowhere to run, no way to fight.
Maruvian Bride (Alien SciFi Romance) (Celestial Mates Book 5) Page 34