The Matriarch Manifesto

by Devin Hanson

  The adrenaline was still hammering in Dennison’s throat and he just jerked his head irritably, shooing Derek onward. He didn’t trust his voice right then. Any credibility he had gained with Derek would have been lost if his voice cracked.

  They reached the stairwell at the end of the hallway and jogged up the stairs. Halfway there.

  Without prompting, Derek and Evan moved out into the hallway. On this level, the mockup Tabitha had produced suggested the hallway ran between the kitchens and the public side of the restaurant. It was wide enough for two laden food carts to pass each other with room to spare. To the right, Dennison could hear the crackle-spit of an arc welder and the bustle of men working at hauling something heavy, with the clatter and clank of steel being moved.

  It seemed like there were a hundred doorways on both sides of the hallway, some of which had been propped open. For a moment, Dennison froze. This was insane. There was no way they would be able to go down the hallway without someone noticing them.

  Realization that they were out of options finally got Dennison’s feet moving again. He hurried to catch up to the ainlif in the lead, and paused next to them before the first open door. Derek leaned out and swept his head to the side before casually pulling it back in.

  “There must be at least twenty people out there, welding together some sort of platform in the middle of the restaurant,” Derek said quietly. “They’re busy, though. We go by. Walk normally, eyes straight ahead. Move with a purpose, but not in a hurry.”

  Dennison nodded and watched, his heart in his throat, as Derek stood, squared his shoulders, then moved in a steady stride across the opening. Once on the other side, Derek put his back to the wall and stared up at the ceiling. Dennison held his breath, listening for the call of alarm he was sure would come.

  Nothing. Dennison released his held breath with a sigh and clapped Evan on the shoulder. “You’re next.”

  Evan stood, shrugged at Dennison, and walked across. Again, Dennison waited for the alarm, but again, nobody seemed to have seen Evan, or cared. They were getting away with it.

  Then, distantly, muffled by the rattle of construction, a woman screamed on the floor below.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  Excerpt from a diary found in Susan Everard’s rooms after her death. Though unlabeled, handwriting experts agree it belonged to Annette Everard prior to her leaving Earth behind.

  “The most draconian of our laws we reserve for ourselves. The rite of passage leading to elevation to the ranks of the matriarchs is a law no human nation could ever uphold. Too far gone are the populations of Earth in the mires of social justice. Perceived slights can ruin careers, public outrage sways the courses of nations. What would the response be to the sterilization and ostracization of our own daughters?

  “Happily, we will not have to suffer the whims of the populace much longer. I should have known better. Society on Earth cannot sustain an immortal population. On Venus, we will structure a society from the ground up around the needs of the future.

  “Still, even knowing the path I have chosen to be correct, it breaks my heart to leave Susan behind. If I could have bent the rules to allow her ascendance I would have. But beginnings are such fragile times. If it became known that I did not have the strength to follow my own Manifesto, what hope is there that the future generations will obey?”

  Leila stared at her hands, her thoughts frozen. Distantly, she could feel the cut in her palm smarting. She should be acting! She should be… doing! Something! Instead, her head felt stuffed full of fiberglass insulation. The beginnings of thoughts scratched at her, but as soon as she tried to grasp at them they fled, leaving her feeling empty.

  “Oy! Leila!”

  Leila flinched and turned at the sound of the voice. The head chef was a bulky man with his stained apron strapped around the bulk of his protruding stomach. He wore a hairnet over his oily curls and his cheeks were flushed. The reek of alcohol rolled off his breath.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. She couldn’t remember what she was supposed to be doing but standing in the doorway staring at her hands probably wasn’t it.

  “Weren’t you supposed to be searing the steaks?”

  Right. She jerked her head in a nod, someone gathered her scattered thoughts. “I, uh, haven’t done it before. Is there someone who could show me what to do?”

  The chef sighed dramatically, sending a wave of his breath rolling over Leila. “We’re short-handed. Are you sure you’re qualified to be a cook?”

  No, Leila wanted to shout, she was an aquaponics specialist. She had no business being anywhere near a kitchen! Instead she shrugged. “It’s just not a task I’ve done before.”

  “Well, the torches are over there, in that box. Hurry up, I want to get the meal prepared and out in the next five minutes.”

  “Okay.” Leila held her breath until the man waddled off before wrinkling her nose and breathing out. Torches. Before her thoughts had a chance to jam up again, she turned on her heel and started rummaging through the boxes where the cook had directed her.

  Her mother was here! Leila’s thoughts flashed to the zip-tie cuffs she had been wearing and wondered for the hundredth time if the shard of glass she had smuggled to her would be enough to cut through the plastic. Or if her mother would even find the shard.

  Leila hadn’t intended to break the glass broiler pan. Distracted over her roiling thoughts about Cynthia, the pan had slipped from her hands, splashing her with hot juices. Then, like a complete idiot, she had slipped in the mess and landed with one hand coming down amid the slew of broiled pressed-yeast chicken substitute.

  She had slipped the shard of glass into a pocket as an afterthought. If it was sharp enough to slice her palm open, maybe it would be enough to cut her mother’s bonds.

  Leila found the torches and selected a burn head and a bottle of propane. She turned toward the door when a choked gasp came from outside. There was a thump as something fell against the door. Leila heard running footsteps, then the unmistakable muffled pop of monomol rounds being fired from a suppressed weapon.

  She dropped to the floor and rolled to the side, putting a counter between herself and the door. It wasn’t likely a monomol round would penetrate the door, they were designed specifically to prevent that, but her training goaded her into automatic action.

  Very few non-military people had the authorization to requisition a monomol pistol. Senior security personnel, habitat captains and their bridge crew, matriarchs and ainlif. She peeked around the corner of the counter and saw the spreading pool of blood flowing under the door.

  The ainlif were here!

  Someone shouted and a boom slammed at Leila’s ears. Any return fire from the ainlif was drowned out by the ringing that followed. She had to get out of here! She knew the protocols the ainlif were operating under. They would kill anything moving without a moment’s hesitation, her included.

  Going out into the hallway would be suicide as surely as if she jumped off the edge of a habitat roof. She scanned the ceiling and saw what she was looking for: an oversized exhaust duct designed to be large enough for a small person to crawl through for maintenance and cleaning.

  Leila jumped up onto the counter below the duct and flipped the latch holding the vent cover closed. It hinged downward, offering a cramped opening. Without giving herself a chance to think about it, she grabbed the edge and hauled herself up and in.

  The duct walls were slick with congealed oils, and she scrabbled for purchase in the centimeter of pooled grease on the bottom before abandoning her dignity and throwing herself flat. With elbows braced against the sides of the duct, she finally found purchase to drag herself further in and pull her legs up after her.

  No time to make sure the vent was closed behind her. At any moment, an ainlif might stick his head through the door just to clear the room, and that would be the end. Heedless of the grease she was getting smeared all over herself, Leila scrabbled forward into the duct. She gagged
at the reek but didn’t stop crawling on her belly until she had made it several meters from the opening.

  Then, carefully, she made her way to her feet. The duct was just large enough that she could walk in a bent crouch. Ahead of her, light filtered in from the vents, just enough to see by. Moving cautiously so she didn’t slip in the slime, Leila walked forward into the gloom. Somewhere, up ahead, the duct had to turn upwards. She could escape the level where the ainlif were that way.

  Jackson Harding was sweating under the weight of a steel brace he was supporting. This late in the construction of the defenses, the only thing the central computer could find for him to do was manual labor. He didn’t mind. At least he hadn’t been assigned to being one of the armed responder teams.

  There was a generally accepted belief among the people Jackson found himself working with that soon they would all have one of the manufactured shotguns. The construction process was being streamlined, the rumor went, soon they would be being made at twenty an hour.

  He didn’t want a gun. He didn’t want to be helping build this raised platform either, but it was preferable to being expected to kill someone. For the first time since he had been assigned to Millicent’s crew, he regretted selecting that job order.

  There was commotion happening behind him, and Jackson twisted his head to see what was going on.

  “Hey! Keep it steady!”

  Reluctantly Jackson focused on keeping the brace in place. The welder tacked the steel in place with a few spot welds, then flipped his mask up to look behind Jackson. With the brace secured, Jackson was free to turn, just in time to see a man stumble backwards out of a hallway. There was something wrong with his chest, the geometry was all wrong.

  The thudding crack of a shotgun discharge sounded, and suddenly the armed response team that had been waiting around for the raised platform to be finished were all running toward the back of the restaurant.

  “They’re here!” someone shouted. “The marines are here!”

  What? Jackson stared after the running men, frozen. How had the marines broken through? The lifts hadn’t been used! Booming gunshots hammered the air and Jackson jerked. This was all wrong. Fear gripped him and he turned about, looking for some place he could hide.

  There wasn’t any place in the Basement that was hidden, and there were too many extras jammed into the space to find any seclusion. The crowd parted on the far side of the restaurant’s dining room and Jackson saw a man being dragged, his left arm missing from the elbow down.

  A woman screamed and Jackson pulled his gaze away. He felt sick. Without forethought, without a plan, he turned and started pushing his way through the crowd. Ahead of him, another squad of armed responders were coming down a stairwell from the restaurant’s upper floor.

  Jackson turned in that direction, more on instinct than reason. If the men were going toward the action, then that meant where they were coming from didn’t have marines. He made way for the men and stared at their faces as they went by. They all shared the same expression of almost religious fervor, and had their eyes fixed hungrily on the back of the restaurant.

  Once they were gone, Jackson used the opening in the crowd to make a dash for the stairwell. A few heads turned in his direction, he was the only person moving away from the noise, but he ignored them. If they wanted to pick a fight with the Horizon marines, they were welcome to it.

  Climbing up the stairs felt like escape. He was almost crying from relief when he made it to the top of the stairwell. Compared to the main level of the restaurant below, the upper level was almost deserted. Jackson slowed his jog to a walk. He needed to get out of the open.

  Only a small part of the upper level was set aside for seating, not much more than a strip that ran along the balcony, with a scattering of tables. He passed a table with a tray on it, a big slab of unprocessed yeast gleaming in the overhead lighting.

  He wrinkled his nose. A corner of the slab had been cut at. Someone was actually eating that? By the look, it hadn’t been that long ago. Maybe one of those armed responders was a culinary masochist.

  There was a suite of rooms behind the balcony seating. He had no idea what the rooms were for but being inside was preferable to being out in the open. Up ahead, he saw a doorway leading in, the swinging door still oscillating from recent passage.

  At least it wasn’t locked. Jackson cut through the tables to the door. He paused outside and listened. A man was talking excitedly on the other side, but it was distant, probably down a hallway. Jackson took a deep breath and pushed the door open a few inches.

  He was right. On the other side of the door, a hallway stretched some twenty yards before turning a corner. The man who was talking stood at the corner, gesticulating to someone outside Jackson’s line of sight. There were plenty of other doors here. Storage rooms, offices, he didn’t care. He just wanted some place he could duck out of sight and lay low until this whole screwed up situation was over with.

  Cynthia Everard let Bremen guide her back toward her cage. The shard of glass in her hand felt like a promise of freedom, but she was rapidly losing her window of opportunity to use it. Once she was locked up again, that would be the end of her chances.

  She slowed her walk and shifted the glass shard forward to hold it pinched between her thumb and forefinger. If she twisted her wrist, she could press the edge against the plastic band on her other hand. She had to be careful; too much pressure and she could end up slicing her wrist open.

  Bremen shoved her and she stumbled. Cold fear swept through her, first at the flash of pain on the inside of her wrist, then the deeper dismay of almost dropping the shard.

  “Keep moving, woman.”

  Cynthia turned and scowled at him. “I am a matriarch, boy. I had my two-hundred and eighty-fifth birthday last month. Show some respect.” She held his gaze, willing him to look away first.

  The sneer on his face turned uncomfortable and he dropped his eyes. “Apologies, Matriarch.”

  She sniffed and turned back around. It had been a long time since she had been around people who didn’t know her by sight. She had forgotten how easy it was for the unfamiliar to see her smooth skin and energy and assume she was in her late twenties. It was gratifying to know that despite her current status she could still inspire existential awe in others.

  Still, she didn’t want to push it. A little guilt went a long way. Moving her wrist at the right angle to saw against the plastic was awkward. If Bremen wasn’t watching her, she could probably have made the cut in only a few seconds.

  She was making progress, though. She could feel the groove in the plastic through the glass shard. How far would she have to cut before the band could be snapped?

  Cynthia was so caught up in cutting at her bonds that she missed the beginning of a commotion on the floor below. It wasn’t until a shotgun boomed close enough that the sound stung at her ears that she startled upright.

  “Huh?” Bremen said. He turned around and took a step away before suddenly remembering Cynthia. “It’s starting!” he said excitedly. “Come on, back to your room!”

  “What is starting?” Cynthia demanded. She had reached the last corner before her room, and she was half-turned, looking back over her shoulder as she sawed frantically at the plastic band. The corner blocked most of her body from Bremen’s view. She felt the sick swoop of pain as she cut herself, but she ignored it. There was no time to worry about that anymore.

  “The marines are attacking!” The growing cacophony of shouts and booming gunshots from below emphasized his exclamation.

  “You have to let me go,” Cynthia said urgently. “You’ve made your point. Horizon is aware of your plight. Continuing on this path will only get everyone here killed.”

  “No!” Bremen shouted, swinging his arms wide in negation. “There is no turning back! You heard Chief Wharton! The only way we can guarantee anything is through force! Back to your room! Now!”

  He took a step toward Cynthia and shoved her in the shoul
der. Cynthia’s fingers, slick with blood and cramping from the effort of cutting through the plastic, lost their grip on the shard of glass. She heard it tinkle to the ground. Cynthia let Bremen’s shove topple her off balance and fell with one knee forward between her wrists.

  The impact with the ground slammed her whole weight forward onto her wrists. Pain flashed as the plastic band cut into her skin, then sudden release as the band snapped. For a moment, Cynthia couldn’t believe it. Then Bremen reached down past her shoulder and grabbed her wrist.

  “Come on, I didn’t push you that hard. We’re in a hurry!”

  Cynthia let him drag her upright, then she twisted her wrist out of his grasp. Blood made everything slippery, and she was free before Bremen processed that her wrists weren’t tied.

  The surprise was still spreading over his face when Cynthia sprang forward. She drove the heel of her palm into his solar plexus with all the strength of her legs and back behind the blow. The air huffed from his lungs and he gaped at her, still too stunned to try calling for help. He croaked something unintelligible, and the dazed surprise in his face twisted around to fury.

  Cynthia swayed out of the path of his first sweeping haymaker and hammered a blow into his floating ribs before he could recover. A kick to the back of his leg, then a swift knee strike to the side of his head as Bremen folded down, and the man collapsed flat.

  She grabbed Bremen’s collar and started hauling him around the corner away from passing eyes, and saw a young man staring at her, his eyes huge in his sweat-streaked face.

  “Shit.” Cynthia dropped Bremen and took a step toward him, wondering if she could close the distance before he came to his senses and shouted an alarm.

  Rather than turning and running, though, the boy just stared. “You’re the matriarch!” he said.