What an amazing thing, to find the Preserve.
A whole unknown world beneath our feet.
A second chance for us all.
But of course, we didn’t know any of that yet when we woke up. I just knew I had to pee.
—From Drop Day Blues, by Rylan Ramirez
-Redemption is on lockdown. There is nothing to be alarmed about. Please stay in your offices and homes while this issue is dealt with.-
The voice echoed in Sanya’s skull. It was the first she’d heard from Alpha in hours, since well before the attack in Rafe’s office.
Alpha wasn’t supposed to know where they were, so if the erasers were working, the warning must have been transmitted on the general band.
-Guess things are about to get a bit bumpy.- Rafe didn’t sound at all worried.
Sanya wondered if Terry was worried about her. She had no one else—even her creche mates had drifted away over the years. Bucking the general trend toward communal living, she had a small gray gumdust flat in tall gray gumdust building in an old co-op in the old part of town, where she lived all alone. She preferred it that way—no one else to stumble over or worry about. And it was cheap.
With a sigh, she followed Rafe through the caverns, which were sporadically lit by long-lasting spore lights. Most gave off a cheery yellow glow, but some had dimmed to orange or red, making those parts of the tunnel look like they were coated in blood.
The tunnels here had been sealed, just like the rock above, to mitigate the danger of silicate moon dust floating through the air. The floor had also been smoothed out, though there were scuffs in various places.
“If the whole city is on lockdown, how are you going to get us out one of the locks?”
He shrugged. “Depends. Where is your transmitter?”
“On the north side, about two hundred meters east of the Harris access gate.” She’d hidden it up a crevasse in the rock on the Hayes Promontory, where it would pass casual inspection. Technically, independent off-the-grid transmitters had to be licensed, but where was the fun in that? Not that this whole thing was turning out to be much fun at all.
“Okay, I can get us there.”
“You have some kind of magic all-access badge or something?” The part of the tunnels they were now passing through was better lit. Conduits passed through it, bundles of cable heavily insulated and held in place with spray foam.
“Something like that.” He stopped, staring at two passageways that branched off to their right.
“What?”
“It’s… nothing.”
Sanya snorted. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone and gotten us lost.” Although how lost could they be? They’d just find those cables and follow them.
“No. Not… lost. Just trying to remember the best route to get there.”
Sanya rolled her eyes. Men and directions. That was a whole day’s discussion, all by itself. Maybe she should do an educational piece about it for RedNews. “I can just ping the network for directions—”
Rafe spun around, alarm in his eyes.
Sanya blanched. “Right. I forgot.” Grid access was as natural as breathing. She felt cut off, like she was missing a limb.
“And in any case, we’re not supposed to be down here.”
“Like that matters? We’re doing a whole series of things that we’re not supposed to be doing.” Kind of the reporter’s creed.
This time he snorted. “Fair point. But if you ping the grid, Alpha will know we’re here.”
Rafe had a point. If Alpha wasn’t Alpha anymore…
Avri, I wish you were still here. She’d always made Sanya feel safe.
Alpha was a constant in the background of life in Redemption, but Sanya rarely gave him much thought. The base AI kept the lights on, regulated the temperature, dealt with disputes, and a hundred other little things that kept the city running every day.
If whatever it was had gotten inside Alpha’s core…. Sanya whistled. “Count the stars.”
Rafe nodded. “Come on. The sooner I get you to your transmitter, the sooner I can get out of here to someplace safer.”
He turned on his heel and chose the left passageway decisively.
With another sigh, Sanya followed.
Rai sat next to his mother’s bed in an old black folding chair that had lost half of its paint.
She looked over at him, her skin gray, but her eyes still shone. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a croak came out.
“It’s okay, Mamma. I’m right here.” He got up and took her hand, summoning all the courage a six-year-old could muster, trying to be brave for her.
She smiled.
It was ghastly, but he shoved down his fear. She was still his mamma.
The door slid open. “Ms. Ramirez.” One of the medics—Doctor Allen?—swept into the room. She tapped her temple, and her eyes unfocused for a second. Loop-face. At least that’s what mamma called it.
Rai turned to her, and the twinkle in her eye told him she saw it too.
“I am so sorry about your husband.” The medic pulled up a chair next to her bedside.
Rai stifled a cry. Daddy had passed on—-mamma’s words—the day before. But it still hurt to hear it. “Will Mamma be okay?”
Doctor Allen knelt next to him, looking him in the eye. “We’re doing everything we can for her.”
Rai was smart enough to know that didn’t mean yes. Still, he didn’t want to know if it meant no.
“We’re giving her pain medications, and we’ve removed as much of the dust as we can from her lungs. From here it’s up to her.”
His mother sat up, reaching for him.
“You should rest, Ms. Ramirez. You’re very sick.”
She took Rai’s hand and squeezed it. -Always remember I love you, mijo.- Then she lay back on the bed, exhausted.
Rai threw his arms around her. -Will you be okay?-
A few seconds passed, then her voice spoke in his head again. -I will always be with you.-
He held her tight, afraid to let go. She was all he had left in the world.
Mamma started coughing.
The doctor pulled him back. “Sorry, son.” She bent over to examine his mother..
The coughs sounded horrible, heavy and wet. Flecks of blood appeared on the white sheets that covered her chest.
Doctor Allen called through the open doorway. “Nurse Lin!”
One of the nurses who’d been caring for his mamma poked her head through the doorway and took in the situation. “Come on, Rai, why don’t we get you something to eat.” She gently steered him away from his mother. “I think Cassie brought in some homemade bakies.”
-Mamma?- Rai looked back over his shoulder at the doctor, who was leaning over his mother in her long white coat.
“She’ll be okay. But the doctors need to help her now. Come on. I’ll find you something yummy for lunch.”
Rai didn’t want to go.
Two more doctors burst into the room, and Nurse Lin took advantage of his distraction to lift him into her arms and carry him out.
-Mamma!- Rai reached out toward her, kicking, desperate to get out of the nurse’s arms.
He could save her. Somehow, he would find a way. He wouldn’t fail her.
-I will always be with you.-
“Mammaaaaaa!”
Rai turned over on his side. He felt all strung out—tired, aching, his thoughts scattered like junlei spores on the wind.
The dream lingered in his head. It was the last time he’d ever seen his mother. The day before, he’d been moved to the creche. I couldn’t save her.
His first failure.
A pounding filled his head.
He and his team were going on the drop tomorrow. Or was that yesterday?
Time was all jumbled up, and he couldn’t get a handle on his place in it.
He remembered meeting people. Strangers.
A storm-swept sky that was wider than he’d ever imagined.
Someone attacking him and Aidan… and a chemical-filled cloth.
Aidan.
Rai opened his eyes.
That pounding filled his head again.
He was lying on a mattress on the ground. The sheets covering it were threadbare. They looked like they might once have been plaid.
Aidan was laying next to him, his eyes closed.
His neck was sore under his left ear. He reached up and scratched it—there was a lump there. Probably a zit.
Rai sat up, looking around the room.
It was roughly square, the walls made of stone or concrete. It was hard to tell in the dim light.
Rai sniffed himself. He smelled clean—there was a hint of something floral. Strange.
He tapped his temple. -Hello? Sam? Anyone?-
There was no response.
He got up from the mattress, his bare feet touching the cold stone floor.
His clothes were not his own. Instead, they were loose-fitting soft pajamas, made of a gray material. The pants were tied at the waist, and the shirt front held together with loops and buttons.
He looked back at the still-sleeping Aidan. He was dressed exactly the same.
The room itself was sparsely furnished—just the bed, a small wooden table in one corner that held a pile of clothing, a single chair, and a door. Oh, and a small red ceramic pot in one corner. Aidan’s pack sat in another, overflowing as if someone had gone through it and put it back together hastily.
Rai picked up the clothes from the small table. They were his and Aidan’s, apparently laundered and folded.
Grateful for the familiar garments, he slipped out of the pajamas and pulled on his own clothes, glancing back to see if Aidan had awakened. When he was fully dressed, he folded his loaned clothes and left them on the table.
He knelt on the edge of the bed.“Aidan.”
He shook the Earther gently.
Aidan mumbled, then turned over on his side away from Rai.
“Aidan!”
“What?” Aidan sat up, rubbing his eyes. His red hair was a comical mess, pointing in three or four different directions. “Where are we?”
Rai shook his head. “I don’t know. Somewhere underground.”
“Someone drugged us—”
“Yeah. Something like that.” He wondered who went to all the trouble of knocking someone out, only to bathe them and then wash and fold their clothes. That seemed like a good sign. You probably didn’t do laundry for someone you planned to murder. Did you? “Here, whoever did it brought these back.” He handed Aidan his garments.
Aidan got up and pulled off his pajamas.
Rai turned away, trying not to notice the white, muscular form that emerged from beneath Aidan’s clothes. The Earther’s back was covered with freckles, something Rai hadn’t seen much of in Redemption. “There’s no place to pee in here.”
Aidan laughed. “Just use the chamber pot.”
Rai turned to stare at him. “The what?”
“Over there in the corner.”
Chamber pot. Rai looked around and spotted the red ceramic container again. He shrugged. I’ve used worse. He removed the lid and relieved himself, sighing with the release.
“So who are they?”
Rai snorted. “Good question. We don’t even know they’re people.” He finished up and looked around for something to wipe his hands on. He settled on his old clothes.
Aidan pulled on his pants, and Rai turned to face him again. “True. What are they, then?”
“Could be whoever shot down the Zhenyi.”
“The what?” Aidan had his shirt on now.
Too bad. “Our ship.”
Aidan sat down on the edge of the bed. “Ah, okay.” He flattened his hair with his hands, but part of it popped back up again. “So… what do we do?”
“I already tried contacting the Launchpad. The station where we came from. Didn’t think I would get through, since we couldn’t even reach them from the surface.”
“Did you try the door?”
“Not yet.” Rai laughed. “Thought I would wait for you.”
Aidan looked at him funny, then nodded. “So should we?”
“Why not?” Rai turned and reached for the door, not sure if he expected it to be unlocked, or to get an electric shock, or something else totally unexpected. It had been that kind of day.
The pounding repeated itself, and this time Rai’s awakened brain translated it to what it was. Knocking.
Rai looked at Aidan, who shrugged.
The knob turned in his hand, and the door opened, swinging inward.
“It’s about time the two of you woke up. I’ve been knocking for half an hour.”
Rai stopped dead in the doorway.
Aidan almost slammed into him. He looked over Rai’s shoulder, trying to see who had spoken.
A woman was sitting in the corridor, considerably older than either of them. She was probably fifty, if he had to guess, her long, braided hair a mix of silver and gray. Not that he had a lot of basis for comparison, but she looked like she might be his mother’s age.
She was dressed in a blouse and skirt made out of the same material as the pajamas he’d woken up in, but hers was brightly colored—beautiful greens and blues in some kind of splotchy pattern that might have been flowers or stars. Her green eyes were startling against her dark skin, and her hands were propped on top of a stout black cane.
“Excuse me? You’re the ones who knocked us out in the first place.” Rai practically growled.
The woman nodded. “A necessary evil. We had to make sure you weren’t a danger to us. We don’t get strangers here much.”
Aidan nudged Rai out into the corridor so he could get a better look.
They were in a long hall, its stone walls like those in their room, but these were covered in art. He whistled, “It’s beautiful.”
Behind the woman and down the hall, as far as he could see, a mural covered the walls, even the doors. There were thickets of trees and wide ocean waters, skies filled with every kind of bird with red and gold and blue and silver wings. The forests and beaches and seas were populated with animals of all stripes, flying and crawling and swimming along the hallway. The level of detail and the sheer mass of plants and creatures took his breath away.
Here a striped cat roamed the jungle, climbing up a long tree branch that looked so real Aidan had to reach out to touch it to prove to himself that it wasn’t.
There, a parrot had its blue and yellow wings extended, beak open in alarm at the black cat stalking it below.
Rai touched his shoulder and pointed at the ceiling.
Aidan looked up.
It was covered with stars, and a silver moon almost radiated light. Farther along to his left, the sun dominated, and to his right, a great storm raged with forks of lightning crossing the artificial sky.
Rai nodded. “It’s breathtaking.”
“It’s called Remembrance. My great grandmother Anise painted it. An act of atonement to the Earth, if you will.” She stood, leaning on her cane, and dusted off her hands on her skirt. She held out her wrinkled hand. “I’m Rosemary. The Elders sent me to talk with you, to find out what kind of men you are before we decide what to do with you.”
Aidan shivered at that last bit.
“I’m Rai, and this is Aidan.” Rai frowned. “What do you mean, what kind of men?”
“I’ll explain more later. For now, please follow me. I’ve prepared a meal for the three of us. I can tell you all about the Preserve, and you can answer my questions.”
She set off, limping a little and using her cane to compensate.
Aidan exchanged a glance with Rai. What to do with us? He wished he had one of those loops, like Rai and Tien.
Rai shrugged, his expression saying Wait and see.
Aidan tapped his talkie, hoping against hope Ally would answer.
There was only silence.
They followed Rosemary, their enigmatic host, down the hallway.
They could probably easily overpower her, should it come down to it. Why wasn’t she worried about that? She should be worried. Neither he nor Rai were the big imposing type, but they were young and fit, and she looked like his grandma.
Something skittered by them going the other direction. Aidan jumped out of the way before realizing it was a drone of some sort—like a silver spider a little bigger than his hand, and its round body was surrounded by a red glowing circle that surged and faded like a heartbeat. “What the hell?”
“Just one of the peacekeepers.” Rosemary waved it away.
Aidan glanced over his shoulder, watching it go, his heart in his throat.
They’d stumbled on something neither of them expected—another civilization under their feet. No harm in learning more.. Plus, his stomach was growling something fierce.
Eat first, liberation later.
His stomach rumbled loudly in agreement.