15
Selah and Treva slowly turned to face Cleon. He’d stopped right where he was. His face went crimson, and he looked like he was ready to panic and run. Selah gave him the eye to calm down, give them a chance to help.
The guard strolled over to Cleon. “How are you today, citizen?”
“Fine,” Cleon answered, trying to keep his voice calm. Selah started to ask Treva whether there was some pat response to a greeting here that they should know, but the guard continued.
“And I’m sure you know the rules by now, right?” The guard smirked.
Selah couldn’t read his expression, but she figured he must think Cleon lived there or he wouldn’t have phrased the question like that. She decided to gamble. Deep breath.
She scurried over to Cleon playfully. “Of course he knows the rules. Which one do you want me to impress upon him?” She batted her eyelashes at the guard. For a moment he seemed more interested in Selah than Cleon, but he quickly regained his composure.
The guard pointed down. “He needs to clean his shoes on the bio-remover so he doesn’t bring that contaminant inside.”
Selah looked down at the clump of weeds caught in the tread of Cleon’s boots. He was dragging it behind him. She looked at the guard. “All men need a mother figure now and then to keep them on track.” She pushed Cleon toward the bio-remover near the doors and stepped on the weed to disconnect it from his shoe. Her heart slowed its staccato beat and she wondered if her ribs would hurt tomorrow.
Selah and Treva rushed Cleon down several halls and through a few corridors before Treva stopped to lean against a wall and catch her breath. Selah didn’t even feel winded yet. Lately, her body seemed to ache for exercise.
“We did it. I can’t believe we made it in here with no problem,” Treva said.
Selah’s mouth opened. “Are you telling me you didn’t think it would work? That we could have gotten caught?” Suddenly she didn’t feel a little brave, she felt a lot brave. They’d done it. First time around. Please let this work.
“I wasn’t sure. They’re only trained to look—”
“Save the explanations for later. Let’s get what we need and get out of here. I’m getting a bad feeling about this again.” Cleon’s upper lip formed droplets of sweat. “Easiest to hardest is the order of the day. Let’s move it.”
“Easiest are my files. This way to my quarters. If our luck holds, my access will still work.” Treva hurried down the hall and around numerous turns.
All the corridors were the same. Slightly different shades of pastels, but all the same size, the same bareness, and very few people. Where were all the people? Selah remembered the directions for the first few turns but quickly gave up. Directions in the woods were easier to remember than bundles of nondescript halls. But she was certain Treva would be there to lead them out. Her logic may not have been sound, but it was the only thing she had at the moment.
The last corridor led to Treva’s quarters. Treva reached for the door but pulled back her hand.
“What’s wrong now? These are your quarters, right?” Selah asked while searching for an occupant plate.
“Yes, but what if they’ve been given to someone else and the code is changed? I could set off the alarm for this whole section.”
“This is not the time to worry. Code in your access and let’s get inside or start running. Those are our only two options,” Cleon said. He shifted from foot to foot and peered around the corner of the next hallway. Selah knew from experience that his nervousness would keep him alert. He’d be a huge asset to their safety.
Treva shut her eyes briefly, then gnawed on her lip. She coded her access and laid her palm to the door panel. Selah would later remember this as the three of them waited, primed and ready to sprint down the hall. They tensed for the shrill alert of the warning horn.
The lock hummed and the door swooshed open. Cleon let out a huge breath and rested his head against the door frame, motioning them in. “We’ve got the grease.”
Selah smiled, even as nervous as she was. It had been quite awhile since she’d heard him make mechanical references like he and their brother Raza used to.
Treva marched through the quarters with Selah following. Cleon remained near the door as security. Selah marveled at how neat and orderly the quarters were. It did lend credence to Treva’s assertion she’d always had compulsive, orderly behavior. Selah noticed a row of long-dead potted plants. Each were in the same size pot on the same size saucer, and they were the same distance from each other and from the edge of the sun shelf. Selah fought the urge to move a couple just to see if Treva would notice.
She strolled into Treva’s bedroom. That was why Cleon wouldn’t come back here. He knew it was her bedroom. His gentlemanly qualities were sometimes a pleasant surprise.
Treva had swung open a bookcase unit to expose a doorway and a hidden room. Selah stepped into the long room. “Okay, how is something like this hidden in the Mountain?”
Treva gathered up data glasses and a few halo-tablets, stuffing them into a pouch slung over her back. “When I walked in here just now, it became clear to me I’ve had the clues all my life, but they were just normal circumstances to me. How many other kids have a secret room in their bedroom? I bet none.” She shook her head.
“Now that you’re tuned to it, what else in your life felt normal but there was no reason for it?” Selah wondered how many of those instances she had missed in her own life in Dominion. Many small things she’d found odd about her mother’s teachings were becoming meaningful, like learning about computers when no one used them in Dominion, or the survival techniques that had come in so handy.
Treva spun, glancing around the room. Her face brightened. She rushed to a narrow cabinet at the back wall and carefully slid open the second drawer from the top. “This was a special present from my father when I was little. He taught me a poem to go with it. He wouldn’t let me have it until I could recite the poem from memory.” Treva held out a necklace. On the end dangled a triangular shape, with the point bent outward at the bottom. The pendant held an ivory insert. Selah recognized it because an antique shoehorn her mother owned had a handle made of ivory. She watched as the triangle spun back and forth on the chain. The golden-colored metal seemed to glow in the bright light of the room.
“I hear people coming down the hall. It sounds like more than one,” Cleon called in a stage whisper.
Treva crammed the necklace in her pocket and they scrambled out of the room. The two of them leaned into the swinging bookcase to push it back into place. Treva directed them out a back door into another corridor.
“I didn’t wait to see if they were coming to your place,” Cleon said. “If they were just passing by, we’d have been safe to head back the other way. I recognized that last turn. It led to where we met your uncle before.”
Selah lowered her head and let out a sigh. She’d been hoping to get a connection to Mojica next. If anyone knew whether her family was in the Mountain, Mojica would be the one.
“We can take a shortcut through this section.” Treva turned right and trotted to the corner. Footsteps sounded. She peeked around the corner and hurried back to their position, motioning them faster down the hall in the other direction. “There’s a two-man patrol coming this way.”
They darted to the corner, skidding to a stop at the echo of more approaching feet. Selah’s adrenaline pumped hard, trying to scramble her thoughts, but she pushed the feeling away and pointed to the corridor they’d originally exited. “Back to Treva’s apartment.”
She scrambled to the doorway and slapped the entrance button like she’d seen Treva do. It asked for a handprint. She turned to make sure Treva and Cleon were catching up. When she pivoted back to the doorway, it had opened from the inside and two pulse disruptor weapons were aimed at the center of her chest. She glanced down at the green and blue laser dots bobbing over her heart and yelped.
Cleon and Treva ran into her from behind. The momentum left the three of them sprawled at the feet of the two guards holding weapons. A third pair of shiny heeled boots walked into view. Selah looked up.
The woman stared down at her. “Did you really think with the technology at my disposal you’d get back in this Mountain without me knowing about it?”
Even though the woman acted like she knew her, Selah didn’t recognize her. The only person she knew inside was Mojica, and this blonde, middle-aged woman with pale green eyes certainly wasn’t her. The guards backed away at the woman’s hand gesture, allowing the three of them to scramble from the floor. With Cleon standing in the center, the weapons found their marks on Selah and Treva. Selah was sure the woman had been talking to her, but Treva answered as though the statements were meant for herself, playing it as though she’d done nothing wrong.
“Dr. Everling, I’m not sure I understand your need to have weapons trained on my chest.”
Selah marveled at the calm demeanor Treva presented. Not a tremble to her words, complete confidence. But would it be enough to bluff a move with this woman? The name Everling brought a chilled tremble to Selah’s back even though sweat ran down the sides of her neck. This was the woman from the experiments on Landers. Every part of her wanted to scream at this woman’s evil, but she had to remain calm if they were to get out of here.
“Oh please, Treva. Do you think I haven’t noticed you haven’t reported to work in months or picked up any of your compensation? Or”—Bethany Everling lowered her chin with a half smile on her lips—“come to see your uncle on his deathbed?”
Treva stumbled back. Cleon caught her and held her upright. “What have you done to Uncle Charles? He was fine until you dragged him back here.”
“So you were in that preposterous community of his? I just don’t see the lure of that dirty, uncivilized world.”
“No, I wasn’t in Stone Braide, but I’m sure you already know that. We saw the destruction.” Treva spit out the words.
“I don’t know what you could be talking about. Must have been bandits. They can be so barbaric.”
Selah watched the woman’s body-speak. Deception. One of the first exercises for Krav Maga that Selah had rated highly in was reading body-speak. Her mouth went dry. It had been different interpreting the movements when there were no distractions like emotions to color her judgment.
“Your uncle was fine when he came back inside for a meeting. It was during the preliminary settings that he had a massive stroke. I’m so happy you’re here. People have been asking about you.” Bethany’s smile showed perfect teeth, her voice dripping with sweetness.
“Take me to him now!” Treva’s voice rose to the tenor of a command.
Selah hadn’t been prepared for such a forceful display from the always mild and calm Treva. And the Everling woman’s reaction! Maybe she read Bethany wrong, but she actually seemed sorry for Charles. But was she sorry for his condition or that he was still alive?
Bethany put her hands on her hips. “I’m more than certain you know where the hospital unit is located. You should probably go see him while there is still time. The guards will accompany you there, and later we’ll discuss why you returned here and brought these people.”
“I want them to come with me,” Treva said as the guards tried to separate her from the others. “They know my uncle. They want to see him too.”
Selah and Cleon nodded.
The woman relented and directed the guards to take the three. She went off in another direction, her heels tapping out a strong gait.
Selah’s insides were screaming to run, but there was no place to go that didn’t include getting shot with a pulse disruptor. The woman appeared harmless enough. Her body-speak was still deceptive, but it didn’t appear aggressive. Concern for strangers in her facility was warranted. The next question would come if she checked their identities in the system.
At the moment, coming into the Mountain seemed like the stupidest plan in the world. But it was too late for regrets now. With Treva occupied with a dying uncle, it was up to Selah to think of a way out.
For a moment, Selah forgot the peril and reveled in the technology. They left the maze of corridors she thought were typical of the Mountain and moved onto streets with buildings and trees and people traveling about. Her senses swayed but were not fooled by the holographic sky and sunshine that stretched across the massive inside roof of the Mountain. The air smelled funny, not clean as outside but heavy with something chemical masked by a floral scent—maybe several flowers mixed together. She wondered if Treva noticed the smell after being outside for several months.
As they crossed the street, she noticed it seemed to go on forever before curving to the right about a mile down the road and disappearing around a bend. A living replica of an ancient destroyed city. They were ushered into a multistory building. At home, Dominion’s buildings were one or two stories at most because there were a lot of empty acres for expansion. These cities seemed to run out of open acres before they ran out of buildings to put on them.
They traveled up to a floor that needed the guard’s handprint for access. Every time he used a bio-access panel, Selah felt sicker and more trapped. Even if she thought of something to do, she didn’t know how to get out, and she hadn’t been able to get a signal from Treva. Were they being held, or could they leave after she saw her uncle?
They stepped into a softly lit hospital room. A flash streaked across Selah’s vision. She blinked rapidly a few times, knowing it happened in her head because no one else reacted to the bright flash.
On the med-bed unit lay Charles Ganston, motionless and barely breathing. A mask and tube extending from the headboard were secured over his mouth and nose. The rhythmic breathing pump signaled the rise and fall of his chest.
Hooked to machines by numerous sensors placed on bare areas of his chest and arms, he appeared pale and small—nothing like the robust man Selah had met a few months ago. She wanted to cry, but Treva would need her as a strong support. Charles’s skin had developed the translucent quality of death. Selah slid her arm across Treva’s back as the girl leaned in and cried softly on her shoulder. No words . . . too much pain.
The outer door slid open and Bethany Everling, now wearing rubber-soled shoes and the white slacks and long jacket of a scientist, entered the large room. Selah wondered how a person could do the evil things this woman was known for, yet appear calm and benevolent. Her loose blonde hair was now tied back in a severe bun, matching her demeanor.
“I suppose I should offer you some reasonable explanation after you’ve cooperated so fully in bringing yourselves into my specific domain without creating a scene and requiring me to deal with Politico fallout like the last time.” Bethany, arms crossed and feet firmly planted, stood next to the guard who’d followed her in.
Selah and Treva turned to face her. Cleon moved to Treva’s side. Bethany knew they had been part of the original Lander escape. Selah worked to appear calm as her mind screamed about the stupidity of coming into this Mountain again. Still, finding out more about her parents overrode her caution.
“Since I don’t understand what you’re talking about, I want to know what’s being done for Uncle Charles? What does the doctor have to say?” Treva imitated Bethany by crossing her arms over her chest and staring back. Selah hid her look of surprise by running a hand over her face. She’d never seen this stern side of Treva before.
“The irony is probably lost on you, my child, but this is the same room that I myself lay dying in several months ago,” Bethany sneered. Selah felt Bethany’s scorn and hostility slam into her like a rolled boulder, and she gasped. It was more than a sensation from reading her body-speak. She registered a physical effect from this woman’s hostility.
“I’m glad you survived, and hopefully my uncle will too.” Treva’s lip curled up ever so slightly.
“Do you want to know why I was in that bed?” Hands behind her back, Bethany began to pace. “I was poisoned in some last-ditch effort to stop my husband’s—” She stopped and wheeled to face them. Her mouth puckered tight as though ready to spit. Selah’s stomach clenched. The woman’s rage enveloped her in its cloud.
Cleon’s realization of what was coming next changed his expression to horror. Selah felt bubbles of anxiety creeping up her chest. Bethany shouldn’t be the one to tell Treva about the rabbits.
“I hope they caught the person responsible. That’s a terrible thing to do to another person.” Treva shook her head.
Selah watched Cleon’s countenance shrinking. Her heart cried for her brother. He’d be a broken man when his part came to light.
Bethany smiled. “Yes, I caught him.” She spun on her heels and faced the bed. “Meet the man who poisoned me—Charles Ganston.” She glared at Treva.
Selah’s knees trembled. A bead of sweat ran down her back between her shoulder blades, making her shiver. This couldn’t get much worse, and the subject hadn’t even got around to her yet.
Treva shook her head back and forth. “No, I don’t believe you. You’re just angry because of . . . well, you’re just angry.”
Selah held her breath. Don’t give anything away. She stood rooted. She knew the truth of this story and couldn’t fake surprise. Treva would know she had kept it from her. No one was going to like this ending. But why the diversion? What did Bethany have planned? Selah wished she had asked more about this woman. She didn’t know her enemy at all, and that could be a fatal mistake. Lesson learned.
“No, there’s more. Seems your new boyfriend here, Cleon Chavez, is the market man for the contraband rabbits used by your uncle to poison me.”
Treva turned to face Cleon. “Tell me she’s lying, that you didn’t have any part of this. Because you would have told me before now, right?” she demanded. “Tell me she’s making this up just to cover up trying to kill my uncle.”
Cleon shrank down to the chair beside the bed. His head went into his hands. “I was only my brother’s helper a couple of times.”
“Oh, certainly that makes it all right then!” Treva threw up her hands and turned on Selah.
She couldn’t lie to her friend. It betrayed every trust they had. Words stuck in Selah’s throat as her tongue turned to sand.
“No, don’t say you knew this and didn’t tell me either,” Treva yelled at Selah, who shrunk back.
What was there to say? She had only tried to protect their relationship by not telling, and now it looked like that would be what destroyed it.
Selah shook her head. “I’m so sorry. It’s not like it sounds. You have to hear the whole story.” Her eyes darted to Bethany and back to Treva. “But not now. When we get home.”
Bethany glared at her. Selah could easily read her body-speak. The woman knew the rabbits hadn’t poisoned her. She was using it as an excuse.
“You seem to have misunderstood, young lady. Or should I call you Selah? You’re not leaving here.” Bethany returned to stand by the guard.
Selah stiffened. There was no longer a need for pretense. “So you know who we are. That and a bunch of bio-coin will buy you a quart of cooking oil. A lot of people know we’re in here, and they’ll come looking for us. They know her uncle is in here. What are you planning on doing with us?”
Bethany smirked. “All I’ll have to say is that he died. I’m going to make that true very soon. But you’re not too bright for a novarium, young lady. If anyone, including your father, knew you were coming into this Mountain, he would have literally moved the Mountain to keep that from happening. You came here on your own.”
Selah remained unresponsive, arms trembling. The bread and apples she’d eaten that morning churned in her stomach. How could Bethany possibly know this much about her? “I ask again. What do you want with us?”
“I don’t want anything with them. It’s you I’ve been trying to get my hands on, and here you walk into my Mountain as nice as you please. My great-grandmother used to say, ‘Good things come to those who wait.’ I think I believe her now.” Bethany unfolded her arms and walked over to stand in front of Selah.
At the moment Selah would have preferred talking to Bethany rather than face the ire Treva was projecting. But she had to face her friend sooner or later. She took a breath and turned away from Bethany to Treva. “Please give us a chance to explain.”
The hurt on Treva’s face dug into Selah’s heart. Treva looked to Cleon, who hadn’t lifted his head. “I don’t want to hear it from either of you. To think you would kill a man, over what? You didn’t know anything about him at the time that would justify such evil.” Her face reddened the more she talked.
Cleon stood and touched her arms. He opened his mouth and a squeak came out. He cleared his throat. “I just knew we delivered the rabbits to that man. I didn’t know what he intended to do with them.”
Treva’s eyes bulged and she pushed him away. “But you thought the rabbits were poisoned and still sold them to someone who wanted them.”
Cleon collapsed back to the chair.
“But Treva, you said yourself, the rabbits weren’t really poisoned,” Selah said. If they weren’t poisoned after all, then Cleon hadn’t hurt Bethany.
“Not poisoned, but a genetic malformation. When introduced to an immune system as weak as ours after 150 years in this Mountain, it caused cancer like I had. It also caused the heart muscle degradation that killed my husband’s father,” Bethany said.
Selah tried to touch Treva’s shoulder but she pulled away. “You are not the people I thought you were. I think I need some time to myself.”
“What are you talking about? You’re going to let one thing ruin our friendship and your engagement to my brother?” Selah looked to Cleon. “Say something!” He wouldn’t lift his head. She looked at Treva, pleading. “Where are you going? You’re going to leave us here?”
“I didn’t do anything. Cleon came with Raza, but he didn’t do anything either.”
Treva’s contempt felt like an ax to her chest. “Yes you did. You kept it from me.”
Selah recoiled. She had broken their friendship. She wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t give Bethany the satisfaction.
“Treva will be escorted back to her quarters, where she will stay under section arrest to greet the many family friends and Politicos who will want to give their condolences about the passing of her uncle when he dies.” Bethany motioned to the guard, who opened the door and admitted another pair of guards with weapons.
“And what if I don’t cooperate?” Treva’s chin came up in defiance. Selah relaxed a little. That sounded more like the Treva she knew.
“Your uncle will die faster, and I can dispose of you sooner.” Bethany narrowed her eyes.
Selah held out a hand. “Treva—”
“I’m not ready to talk to you two yet.” Treva’s look morphed to stone. No emotion. Flat features. Dark eyes. She turned on her heels and left the room, followed closely by the two new guards.