SENALL

23 How many days had it been?

Here, in her room, mired in the perpetual high of RuBy, Dorie couldn’t tell day from night. She floated on a cloud of contentment half the time and sank into waves of despair the other half. Any time she felt like she couldn’t go on, she miraculously found RuBy in her room. On some occasions, she’d pop it and manage to quiet some of the strange voices that haunted her: voices unintelligible, strident, mocking, and unforgiving. She had no recollection of others sharing her room and wondered if she’d been transferred to a different facility. Maybe the voices were the ghosts of Ribon. Her RuBy-induced fears revealed stranded colonists unable to flee the hammer of Coral Moon, its shattered bulk pounding the planet and its people into submission. She wept for them, the poor, poor things. Then came the low pathetic whimpers she didn’t want to hear. When she tried to tune them out, she realized they were her own whimpers. Exhausted, she’d curl into a hard ball and whisper herself to an uneasy sleep.

For a while, she counted the days—or what she assumed might be complete days—by keeping track of the squares of RuBy brought to her. Before long, she couldn’t tell one square from another or distinguish the time between them.

She had it bad. She had it so good.

How many days had it been?

Waking one morning-day-night, she felt the cobwebs give way, and she regained enough clarity to take a measured look at her room. Her head throbbed and her throat was raw, coated with partial blisters from RuBy squares that hadn’t dissolved properly. She bought a hand up to her mouth to rub at the sore on her lip and noticed her fingers were stained red from the RuBy dye.

The room was bare except for the narrow, lumpy bed she sat on. The light was dim, as if in a room with only a couple of night lights. Four gray walls, and a door in the front. It was wide open. She leaned forward and stood, careful not to pitch forward. Waiting a few seconds, she weighed the risk of taking a step ahead. She extended her arms like a tightrope walker, then risked a step, and another, pausing only to maintain her balance. When she felt confident enough, she walked ahead to the open door and through. Now outside the room—she knew it was actually a cell—she glanced at the stenciled label on the upper half of the door: Room 12.

She fought her muddied brain, forced it to think, and realized where she was. The Bubble. She’d come here to talk to that Memor, what’s-her-name. Dave visited too, a little later. The Memor could come and go from her room—Room 15, she remembered—and she had a rest period somewhere else. For tests?

Yes. The Bubble was for Thin Men. A place to study copies. But this Memor was not a Thin Man.

She remembered now. Lorway was here. The only prisoner in the Bubble. There were no Thin Men here. Just Lorway.

And now Dorie. An original, like Lorway. Not a copy. Not the Dorie who fell from the Tempest Tower who was one of the poor, poor ghosts of Ribon.

Was Lorway still here? Room 15 should be just down the wide hallway. What advice would the Memor give her now? Perhaps something more practical than Death isn’t death when it’s a new beginning.

She inched toward Room 15, her shoulder brushing across the wall for support. Her head was foggy, and she was thirsty. Her muscles ached, and she wanted more RuBy. She had come to a new place, but RuBy didn’t wait for her. She could think, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to think. Sakson, you fucker. Had he extracted what he wanted from her, then thrown her in the Bubble to suffer through withdrawal?

When she reached the door, she leaned in and peered through the doorway. She would’ve been disappointed. The room was nearly empty. Not only was Lorway gone, but so was her multi-colored dresser and framed mirror. The only evidence the Memor—or it could’ve been anyone, really—had ever been in this room was scattered debris: discarded fabric, bits of scrap paper and metal, and other garbage.

She knew she hadn’t dreamed her encounter with Lorway. That was a different time. That had been Dorie the governor, not Dorie the RuBy addict.

She was about to turn away when she spotted something that glittered on the floor amidst some of the debris in one corner of the room. First, she thought: RuBy. But no, it was larger, and it wasn’t red. She crossed the room and looked down, and with her foot, pushed aside some wrappers, wood scraps and burnt paper.

There. She bent over and picked up a Tarot card. It was not the one Lorway had given her of course—she’d given that one to Dave—but an unfamiliar one. She remembered Lorway telling her to give the Death card to him, and that she had a few others—some minor ones—she kept for sentimental reasons.

This card was singed along the edges, as well as throughout the card, outlining the stained-glass window with five coins, and in front of the window, two figures: a cripple and, maybe, a beggar.

Her head was clearer, and she found herself able to think cogently instead of wondering about when she’d find more RuBy. She still ached and felt horrible. Crowell and Plenko had discussed using these for Dave’s trip to the Ultra universe. If Dave had successfully crossed because of his Tarot cards, then what was this card doing here, seemingly damaged? She moved the scraps around some more and found another card.

It had no burn marks. The card showed a Devil and what she believed were Adam and Eve. The difference between this card and the first one was that this card’s edges weren’t singed.

She had a thought, and she looked up into the corners of the room, wondering where the cameras might be. Lorway was a Memor. Had she known about this card, kept it, and discovered how to use it . . . to travel? A minor card, so maybe she wouldn’t go far. Enough to escape the Bubble? Triggered by Dave Crowell’s use of the other cards?

If so, where had she gone?

If so, Dorie was alone in the Bubble; except, she supposed, for Warden Max Rydell and other Bubble personnel.

She explored the rest of the “cells.” The doors were all open, and they were all empty. She remembered Max saying Lorway and others had “rest” time somewhere outside the cell area, but no other door led to any rest area. Finally, when she’d finished her search and found nothing, she backtracked to the main security door she’d come through during her visit with Lorway. It was shut tight and she had no access to the inset panel that housed the DNA lock mechanism.

She was stuck. Pounding on the door got her nothing but sore hands and a raging headache. If anyone was on the other side, they were not interested in the crazy RuBy addict.

She slid down the door and sat on the floor, riding out a wave of nausea. She was sweaty, and her throat burned. There was nothing she could do. She was trapped inside the Bubble, cut off from everything and everyone, and she was tired of feeling helpless. She wanted Terl here. She wanted Dave here. One was probably dead, the other far, far away. How long had Dave been gone, journeying to his quiet spot and to the Ultras? How long until she knew for sure what had happened to her Plenko?

How many days had it been?

Dorie woke with a start and realized she’d fallen asleep against the security door. Her body ached more than before, but was it due to withdrawal symptoms or because she’d slept in an awkward position against the steel door? As usual, she had no idea how much time had passed. Nothing had changed in the hallway. Although not confined to a cell, she had no other freedom than the hallway, from security door to the end wall.

Dorie pushed her back against the door and slid up until she could stand, wobbling only a little. For now, it seemed the best thing she could do was go back to a cell and lay down on one of the beds. Get more rest. She felt better, but she wasn’t a hundred percent, and she still craved the Red. If Sakson appeared and offered it to her, she might take it.

Halfway down the hall, she thought she heard a thumping noise. She stopped. Had she imagined it? Staying as still as possible, she listened so intently she heard the heartbeat in her ears.

thump, thump, thump

There was no denying the sound, which came from the far end of the hall. She swallowed her fear, which was considerable since she’d checked the place earlier and found nothing. Was this due to the RuBy? But no, she was coming down from it. The sound was real, but where was it coming from?

She pinpointed it: last cell on the left. Room 1.

thump, thump

She’d checked that room, damn it. There’d been nothing in there but the small bed. Was the door in the same position? She couldn’t remember. Now, her hands shaking, she grasped the handle and pulled the door wider.

Still empty. But—

thump, thump, thump

The thumps were louder now that she’d come to this room. Her pulse beat faster as she took two brave steps past the threshold, fighting back her fear.

“Hello?” Barely more than a whisper, no one within ten feet of her would’ve heard it. She said it again, projecting into the room. “Anyone there?”

thump thump thump thump thump thump thump

She cried out in surprise. The thumping was beneath her. Mercy, there was someone—or some thing—under this room. She scanned the floor, looking for signs of an opening, but she saw nothing.

Monsters under the bed.

The idea came to her quickly, and she tottered to the bed, grabbed hold of the end of the frame, and, with relative ease, pulled it away from the wall. The casters screeched as she pulled, and in the space under the bed was a circular trap door of a highly glossy metal. She would’ve expected something more ostentatious, the metal decked out with a high-tech control panel, or a DNA lock, but in the middle of the circle, a heavy bronze ring rested snug in a slight indentation the same shape as the ring. She knew it would lift and open the door. Did she want to open it?

thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump

The pounding grew more urgent. The “monster” knew Dorie was up here, but the renewed, more frantic pounding was something a reasoning human would do, not some kind of beast. There weren’t really monsters, were there?

The thumping started again and didn’t stop. She made a decision. Before she changed her mind, she bent over, grabbed the ring, and pulled. The thumping stopped.

She forced herself to kneel. The lower deep was dark, but she saw the shape that separated itself from the shadows and edged closer to the opening. Something clattered to the floor near the shape—probably the thing that had done the pounding—and quiet fell on Room 1 all over again.

Dorie held her breath, waiting for the thing to leap out at her suddenly, finally freed from its trap. Instead, she heard an indistinct mumbling. Ever so slowly, something reached for the opening. She made out the hand and fingers first, then the arm, and yes, it was human, and whoever it was wanted out of there very badly. The fingers couldn’t quite latch onto the edge of the opening, just out of reach.

Dorie took a chance, a big breath, and extended her arm into the hole. The hand grabbed hers, and deep inside she wanted to scream, afraid she’d made the wrong decision.

She pulled. Then she grabbed the arm with both hands, leaned back, and tried to hold on. The person on the other end finally gained enough leverage to snag the edge, then swing another arm up. When both hands were firm and gripping tightly, she let go and sat back. After that, the person pulled up, working his way through the opening.

Dorie cried out once his face was visible. A nearly transparent strip of sprayable polymer effectively gagged him, but she knew right away it was Aditya Thakur.

“Adi!” she yelled.

She leaned forward again and stretched her arms under his, helping the best she could, until he’d clambered out onto the floor of Room 1. When he rolled enough so he could get to his knees, she wrapped him up and squeezed tight.

“Adi,” she said. “Oh, Adi, they said you were dead!”

He didn’t answer. She’d forgotten about the polymer gag; she worked it off his face, the surface responsive to her own skin and DNA so she could break the seal. He still didn’t say anything, but this time, he took a long, deep breath, as if the gag had kept him from breathing normally for a long time. They helped each other stand, and Adi breathed deep once more.

“Hello, Governor Senall,” he finally said.

Dorie smiled, but inside she was ecstatic for the return of Adi Thakur. Her friend. He’d been appointed acting governor after she’d stepped down and left Ribon, but he still considered Dorie the right person for the job. Tom Sakson had pulled off his little coup, but Dorie wished it were otherwise.

“I’m so happy to see you,” Dorie said. She couldn’t get over the shock of Adi appearing almost literally out of nowhere. “How in the world did you end up here?”

Adi brushed himself off. “It’s a long story.”

Dorie swept her hand to include the room and, effectively, the entirety of the Bubble. “We’re locked up tight in a maximum security facility, maybe being watched, and we’re not going anywhere any time soon. We’ve got time. I want to know what happened.”

“It was Tom Sakson,” he said. “You were right to worry about him.”

“Adi, I know about Tom. He arrested me as soon as I returned from Barnard’s.”

Adi nodded. “I can believe it.”

“He gave me RuBy. He forced it on me. Discredited my reputation.” She held out her hands so he could see her stained fingertips. “I lost so much time. I didn’t know what I did during those times, or what he might have done.”

Aditya Thakur sighed so pitifully that it frightened Dorie. What did Adi know? As if the whole thing with Plenko, Dave, and his father wasn’t enough to scare her to death, she dreaded what Adi was going to say. She frowned, trying to anticipate Adi’s news. “Why are were here in the Bubble? Why did he say you were dead, and why did he Rube me out against my will?”

Adi reached out and put a hand on her neck. She felt a chill when he did it, even though she knew it was meant to calm her. “I’m sorry.”

“Why’s he done this to us?”

“He doesn’t care about me,” Adi said. “He wants Plenko. He hates Plenko more than anyone else in the Union for what he did to him—and to Ribon.”

“That was not my Plenko!” Dorie shouted. “And it was the Ultras who dreamed all that up.”

“I know. Of course I know that. The thing is, he’s determined to keep going until he knows that all the Plenkos are dead. He arrested me, kept me in confinement in New Venasaille. He killed the Plenko you came here with. He used you as bait, and now he has what he wants.”

Dorie thought she’d misheard him. She narrowed her eyes quizzically. “He has what he wants?”

“Almost. He sent a coded ping through the slot to Barnard’s World, wideband. You’re here in the Bubble for ransom. Sakson told me all of this, then threw me in solitary while you were passed out.” His eyes misted, and he had a hard time looking at her. “He’ll kill you, Dorie. Sakson will kill you if Plenko isn’t delivered to him.”

Dorie said nothing, waiting for the other foot to fall.

“Morgan was the go-between. Plenko screwed up, I guess. Morgan found out where he was. Morgan’s task is to bring him to New Venasaille and he’ll be given to Sakson in exchange for you.”

What Crowell and Forno had been hired to do. Bring Death to Plenko. The Tarot card, sure, but literally too.

“I’ll bet on Terl,” she said. “He won’t let Morgan take him.”

“Morgan doesn’t have to take him. Plenko is giving himself up.”