14

Selah spun around. This time she was standing in the grass of a large flower garden. A warm radiance gave light as though the sun was shining, but when she looked up she could see the blizzard raging outside the dome. The Keeper sat at a wrought-iron table and chairs underneath a trellis covered in grapevines and hanging fruit clusters. He gestured her over as he poured hot amber liquid into two cups.

She approached the table. “Thank you for rescuing my family, but you have got to stop whizzing me out of rooms when I’m in the middle of a conversation.”

She took a seat at the table and studied her cup. It was a fine white glass or ceramic. The old lady in the Mountain had cups like this in her dining room. Selah carefully slid her finger into the handle and lifted the cup to sniff the liquid. She looked up and saw the Keeper smiling softly as he watched her.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” She took a sip. The drink was tangy like an orange but sweet like honey.

“You seem less agitated now that your family is safe. So I thought we could talk.” The Keeper sat back and picked up his cup.

“I hope you don’t take this wrong, but if you only want to talk, I’d much rather be with my family,” Selah said.

The Keeper chuckled. “Fair enough. I thought you would want to know that with the size of the storm, we’ve estimated you’ll be here at least ninety days.”

Selah frowned. She’d have to trust in Mojica and Taraji’s confidence that she’d be safe here. “That would have us leaving here sometime in December. Do you think we’ll miss being hit by another storm on the way west?” It occurred to her that she’d reach her six-month peak around the time they left here, leaving them only six months to find the Third Protocol.

“We typically have a break in between major events, so it looks favorable. But it will take everything your team has to prepare for the six months of trials after you leave here.”

“I’m not happy to be stuck here for so long, but we’d appreciate any help you can offer.”

The Keeper sat forward. “You will spend the next three months here, relatively safe, as your strength builds and your mental capacity heightens, but when you leave your strength will start to drain. You will need people with highly trained skills of combat and survival to navigate what is left of the world out there.”

“Our transport doesn’t have the ability to take additional people,” Selah said. Besides, her trust only went so far, and taking strangers with her was not part of the plan.

“I’m not talking about more people. I’m talking about better people. You have two Kinship traveling with you. They will benefit from training on our systems, which are compatible with their DNA,” the Keeper said.

“I have three people. Bodhi Locke is—”

“Bodhi Locke is useless. He is the Second Protocol who transitioned you. Why is he even with you?” The Keeper looked disgusted.

Selah hesitated, not wanting to be rude. “How do you know that?”

She caught the small, almost unperceivable movement of the Keeper’s eyes darting from side to side. “Remember, I scanned all of you before you came into the dome.”

Even without his body-speak she knew that was a lie. She bristled. “I don’t know or have a say in how you run this place, and I appreciate that the dome’s purpose is to protect me, but you do not get to dictate who travels with me.”

One side of the Keeper’s mouth raised in a sarcastic smile. “You’re in a relationship with that Lander. Well, that’s nothing new. I’ve seen it before. What a waste.”

Selah’s face contorted with anger. “You don’t get to make that call. Bodhi gets the training too, or none of us will participate.”

He ignored her words. “I scanned your transport when you came in. We have halo-trainers in our archives for commanding the systems in that vehicle. Mojica and Taraji could gain an advantage by being trained daily,” he said as he made a selection from a gilded box.

Selah balked. “Don’t change the subject! Does Bodhi get the training?”

The Keeper frowned but waved a hand. “Yes, he can have the training.”

“Good.” Her anger began to subside. “The only other thing that would make this a fruitful discussion would be you telling me about the next station.”

The Keeper furrowed his brow and looked at her hard, then shrugged and sighed. “Your survival has always been our ultimate goal, so information comes on a need-to-know basis, but in this extended situation I guess it can’t hurt to tell. You will be traveling next to the dome at Chicago, Illinois, to find the Seeker.”

Relief poured over her, but then she thought that seemed too easy. “What is a Seeker? Are they different from you?”

The Keeper sat back. “At one time long before the Sorrows, we were all one company with one goal to help mankind. Then greed and personalities tore that goal asunder.”

Selah recoiled at the thought of Blood Hunters being humanitarians. “But the Chicago dome is home to the Blood Hunters. How did they wind up being so much different from you?”

“Greed drives a man to do strange things. Instead of wanting to help the world, they decided they wanted to make obscene amounts of money, and if the world benefited in the long run it would be a plus. They took the name Seekers to make it sound like they had a higher purpose.”

Selah frowned. “Their higher purpose disintegrated into evil. They’ve been trying to kill me for the last few months.”

“An unfortunate by-product of greed. It’s hard to take the humanity out of the equation.” He held out a multifaceted purple prism with a star shape at the end. “This will allow you admittance to the Chicago dome.”

She snatched up the crystal. “You could’ve saved me a lot of angst by telling me the first time. We could have gone on our way.” Just holding the prism made her antsy to leave.

“You would have been caught in the magnetic part of the storm halfway between here and Chicago, and that is probably where your party would have died.”

Selah sat back as the thought sank in. How easily they all could have died. Her sense of responsibility pressed in like a crushing weight on her chest. For a moment it was hard to breathe, but she shook off the feeling and jumped to her feet, jostling the table. “You said you wouldn’t tell me till I was ready, and now a couple hours later you’re telling me. Do you really think I’m ready? What kind of game are you playing?” She tightened her hand around the crystal. The sharp edges pressed into her flesh. She tried not to wince, refusing to appear weak.

“You will be ready by the time you’re able to leave,” the Keeper said calmly.

Selah relaxed her fist. Lightning flashes crossed her vision. Anger and fear rose and prickled across her chest, then subsided, leaving her drained. What was that? Was it a normal flash, or had the Keeper put something in her drink? She lowered back to the seat and fingered the rim of her cup. The disturbance in her head cleared like a breeze pushing away the morning fog. It felt like her new normal after such an event.

She still didn’t trust this Keeper or this place, but Mother had taught her as a child that she could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. She needed these people a lot more than they needed her.

“Speaking of the storm, what is the STORM those people are protesting?” Selah pushed the cup away with the tips of her fingers.

“STORM is the acronym for Singular Transition Oral Regiment Method,” he said.

“Those are big words. What does it mean?”

“Do you mind if we discuss this in my office?” The Keeper rose.

“Yes, I do—”

Selah put her hands out to steady herself as she found herself in the Keeper’s office. “I wish you’d warn me when you’re going to do that.”

“Sorry. You will soon tune into the frequency and feel when it’s coming. The others did,” the Keeper said as he walked past his desk to the low bookcase.

“Are you talking about other novarium?” Selah walked beside him.

“Yes, of course the other novarium.”

Selah stopped. “How many others?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Over the years . . . probably fifty-five or sixty.” He waved his palm over the top of the bookcase and a control panel rose from the surface.

“You mean there were up to sixty others and none of them made it?” The staggering implication accompanied another lightning surge. This time she was confident that it was part of her new normal. Selah leaned against the bookcase. That number was far beyond what she had been told.

“Do you want to know about STORM? Or lost novarium?” The Keeper lifted his hand from the panel.

Selah stared at him, sparkles dotting her vision. “Yes, I want to know about STORM, but at the same time I think I deserve a minute to understand just how hard this process is to accomplish. Sixty other people have failed. Why should I be the one who makes it?” Selah leaned her back to the bookcase and looked at the floor till the lightning passed. She wanted to be confident, but all these things kept chipping at her resolve.

The Keeper turned from the glass to face Selah. “I guess it depends on whether you have the fire inside you to make it.”

She wanted to say that after all the lightning charges she felt full of fire, but she didn’t want to tell him more about her condition than she had to. “Well, it looks like you haven’t picked a winner so far,” she said wryly.

“I’m a total stranger to you, as you are to me. If I told you I knew you could make it, that would be a lie. I would like to hope you could make it, but that outcome belongs to something much bigger than me.” The Keeper raised a finger and an eyebrow. “If you could complete the Third Protocol, then our application of STORM would no longer be necessary.” The Keeper gestured back toward the glass.

The lights came on, and a cylinder five feet in diameter rose from the floor until it reached the ceiling of the two-story room. The covering on the side of the cylinder slid back to display a pulsing multicolor shade of blue.

Selah stepped closer to the glass. Her vision had cleared, but this time the sparkles came from within the tube. “What is that?”

“They call it the mother,” the Keeper said.

“You mean like the starter my mother uses for her sourdough, or the mother in apple cider vinegar?” Selah said.

The Keeper nodded. “You are one of only a few who understand the concept. There may be hope for you yet.”

“Well, that’s a first. A vote of confidence.” Selah did want to learn about what she was, and if this guy was willing to teach her, she’d have to show him a little trust. Besides, they’d be stuck here a few months whether she interacted with him or not.

“First, I have to impress upon you that this is for your knowledge only. It can never be shared with another living soul. It would destroy our society before its time.”

Selah smirked. “Isn’t that a little dramatic? Someone besides you and me must know the secret.”

“No one, and at the moment I’m the only one who knows unless you agree to never repeat the information,” the Keeper said.

Selah thought for a second. He had already afforded her the trust of handing over the next key. “I will never repeat the information.”

“The formulary in that receptacle—”

“Wait! You’re going to believe me just like that?” Selah’s eyes widened as she threw up her hands. She hadn’t believed him that easily.

“Well, of course. You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” The Keeper stared at her.

“No . . . no, I wouldn’t lie to you.” Selah picked up an odd sensation from the old man. Strange, but she knew he was telling the truth. Either he was extremely trusting or he was setting her up for something.

“Okay then, the formulary in that receptacle has been dispensing pills for the last 150 years. We have kept sample results over the years for each batch, and in the last twenty years the produced batches have become weaker. Between births and deaths the population is remaining steady. So we’ve tried to hide the weakness by dispensing pills later and making people think the aging is coming from the delay rather than alarming them about weaker batches.” The Keeper closed down the tube and it returned to the floor.

“Why can’t you just tell them the truth?” Selah didn’t know the people, but telling them the truth seemed like the only way to let them be part of their own destiny.

“Because there would be only a small minority who would understand the situation. Then there would be the group that would figure out how to cheat the system and start a black market of stealing others’ pills to increase their own dosage, and society would break down and not be here for the . . . next novarium.” The Keeper looked down. “I’m sorry I had to say that, but it is our reality if you do not succeed.”

Selah’s shoulders slumped as she frowned and shut her eyes tight. Then her eyes flew open. “Wait, what does STORM’s quality have to do with me succeeding?”

“When you connect with the Third Protocol, all Landers will be changed, but so will all parts of this project. They are all interconnected,” the Keeper said.

“What do you mean by ‘all parts’? What other parts are there besides the Protocols?”

The Keeper shrugged. “The Kinship, the Blood Hunters, the Keepers here in this dome, the Seekers in the next—we all employ some variation of the same building blocks. Therefore everyone involved in this project will change in some way. But meanwhile we must persevere as we are.” The Keeper returned to his rocker. Selah followed and sat in one of the heavy wooden chairs next to his desk.

“My success is tied to more lives than I ever understood.” Selah leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “What happens if I don’t—” The word stuck in her throat. “What happens if I don’t succeed?”

“You are the last novarium in this first cycle. We will wind down until this society has died out to a population of approximately twenty people, which will allow the mother enough time to regenerate to multiply pill production and build the society for another 150-year cycle,” the Keeper said.

“What about the dome? Will it survive with that few people?” This was the first place she’d been to on the other side of her mountains, and she found it to be lovely. Knowing his society was headed for extinction because a novarium didn’t succeed must be a heavy burden. She was gaining more respect for the Keeper’s responsibility.

“We expanded the dome at the beginning to be self-regenerating. We’ve become an established safety point between the storms, but that is not our immediate problem.” The tone of his last few words became deeper.

Selah lifted her head. “Why do I know that tone of voice—and not like it?”

“Because I’ve been given new information. One of the groups I worried would get a foothold in the unrest has massaged an old theory. Early in the last century someone told a variegated story rather than the true purpose of the novarium in the Protocol. Therefore the truth was lost, replaced by speculation and a whole society that wants nothing better than to experiment with your DNA in hopes of creating a permanent formula.”

Selah heaved a great sigh as she stared at the ornate tin ceiling. “There’s always someone who wants my blood. I’ve lived that way for the last three months.” She lowered her gaze and looked square at the Keeper. “So what is the immediate problem?”

Bodhi had traced his steps across the great room and into the garden four times already. All he could concentrate on was Selah’s disappearance. She said it would need to happen for her to meet with the Keeper, but Bodhi still didn’t like it. He strolled back into the great room. Mojica was explaining the situation to Mari and Pasha, with the two kids stretched out on the floor beside them, quietly reading stories from the Stone Braide Chronicles.

“There are no old folks, or at least no old-looking folks. People still age, but old-looking age is just a disease,” Brejian said to Taraji. Bodhi stopped pacing to listen.

“So you’re telling me people here take a pill once a year and never get any kind of sickness or disease. How can I believe such a thing? There would be people coming from far and wide to steal and duplicate the technology,” Taraji said.

And Selah was the target of such misguided thieves, who thought her blood was a fountain of youth.

“Each pill is especially coded for the recipient so there can be no theft, and the only recipients are original descendants of the founding families. But lately those dosages are given farther and farther apart, which is causing visible aging that people aren’t happy with. That’s why they’re protesting,” Brejian said.

Taraji shook her head. “Nothing ever changes. People are the same everywhere. There will always be something the masses are unhappy about even when they live in a paradise like this.”

Brejian stood. “Yes, you’re right, so I hope you’ll take the information my people have provided. Selah is in danger here. There is a group of rogue scientists who think adding novarium DNA to STORM can create a perpetual pill that doesn’t need yearly renewal.”

Bodhi strode across the room. “That’s similar to what the Mountain people tried to do with her blood. Where is the Keeper holding Selah? We need eyes on her at all times until we leave here.”

“We can go out to the console and request a message be sent to Selah. I don’t know if the Keeper has restrictions on communications when she’s with him,” Brejian said.

Bodhi motioned her from the seat. “Come on then, please. We need Selah back here now. She needs to hear this.” He nodded to Mojica and led Brejian out of the housing unit and down the hall.

As they turned the corner a tall, mustached man entered the marble-floored lobby with a loud, determined stride. Brejian stopped short and Bodhi almost plowed into her. The tall man paused as well. Bodhi turned to Brejian, but she had shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and displayed the biggest smile Bodhi had ever seen on her. He turned to look at the man. He was giving the same all-teeth grin. It annoyed Bodhi when people smiled like that. It seemed to be exaggerated for effect.

Bodhi stepped out of the way as the two people rushed to each other. He frowned. Brejian had been back in the dome for a matter of hours, yet she already had access to a whole information network and, apparently, a man now coming to renew an acquaintance. He hadn’t missed her presence for more than a few seconds all day. How was she doing it?

“I’m sorry to be so rude. Bodhi, this is Healer Cinanji. Cinanji, this is Bodhi Locke. He’s a member of the party I arrived with, and unfortunately, they will need to remain here until the storm has passed.”

Cinanji smiled graciously at Bodhi. “Thank you for bringing my first love back to her home. I’m sure I will see you around the dome for the next few months, so enjoy our hospitality. What is ours is yours.” He bowed at the waist, kissed Brejian’s hand, and went on his way.

Bodhi watched him go. He didn’t believe a word the man said, and he already didn’t trust Brejian, so to think they were conspiring together was only logical. He needed to keep the enemy close. “Where would he be going here in a way station?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Why do you want to know?” Brejian gazed in the direction the healer had gone.

Bodhi turned and stared her down. “Because we’re worried about people infiltrating our system to grab Selah, and he appears to be a perfect example. All he has to do is see that light in your eyes, and I bet you’d tell him our whole itinerary.”

Brejian glared at him. “Listen, you haven’t liked me from the start—”

“You’re right, and that’s because you’ve lied. I’ve seen you snickering behind Mojica’s back, and I’m not sure how you’ve gotten all your information since being in the dome, but it’s making me nervous.”

Brejian pursed her lips and held up her hands in surrender. “All right. Enough. I guess you have a right to know. I was one of the ones sent out early on. We were supplied with implants that always register an active dome frequency. I reactivated it once we came inside, and now I’m reconnected to my network.”

Bodhi grinned. She had given in too easily, but he’d play along. “So you rekindled a relationship too?”

Brejian’s mouth opened. “Oh, no, no. I didn’t do that. It was a perfect accident, us coming into the lobby at the same time.”

Bodhi nodded but continued to watch the healer while Brejian sent a message to Selah by way of the Keeper.

He didn’t like this. There was something wrong and he was missing it.

They walked back toward the housing unit. Bodhi quickened his steps, barged ahead of Brejian, and flung open the door.

His eyes widened.

Selah stood in the middle of the great area, Mari beside her, as Mojica and Taraji relayed what Brejian had learned. She turned as Bodhi rushed to her and scooped her up in a bear hug. She started to laugh at the fierceness in his hug but quickly stilled as she felt the tremor in his embrace. He was afraid.

Bodhi set her back on the floor. His face reddened. Selah’s heart dissolved into mush at the love and concern radiating from him. She decided to make light of it so he didn’t feel more embarrassed.

“You’re going to have your hands full. I’m the prey of the century and we’re trapped here in a blizzard. It sounds like one of those stories Rylla and Dane have been telling me about.”

Bodhi tipped his head and looked down at her. “Do you feel all right? This isn’t a joke. You’re in danger.”

She blinked. “And how would you prefer I act? Do you want me to be cowering in the corner? This is now a fact of my life. I have to learn to adapt or perish. There have to be malcontents in a population this large, but if I worried about danger around every corner it would drive me crazy before the fracture does. I’m choosing to live on a level of trust.”

Bodhi planted his feet. “I’d rather you took your security more seriously—”

“Easy! Easy, you two,” Pasha said. “Be glad that Selah’s returned. It looks like we’re going to be here for quite a long time.”

“I was trying to wait until we’d settled in, but here’s serious for you,” Selah said to Bodhi. “Mojica, Taraji, and you will start training. The Keeper has combat halo-trainers for our transport in their archives,” Selah said. “So he was willing to trust us enough to offer combat training, which we desperately need.”

A smile spread across Bodhi’s face. “I can deal with that.”

“Brejian, would you help me set up the training sessions since you know how to interface with the system?” Taraji said. She ushered Brejian to the outer door.

“Can you also show me where to find provisions to stock this kitchen so I can feed the children?” Pasha followed behind Taraji and Brejian and closed the door on her way out.

Mari directed the kids back to their reading of the Stone Braide Chronicles. Only Bodhi and Mojica remained with Selah.

“Everyone else knows what we’re going to share. We were trying to get Brejian out of the way because I don’t trust her,” Bodhi said.

Selah pinched her brows together. “What has she done wrong? She’s Kinship and Taraji’s pick. Her information was critical to us getting here. The fact that she had the crystal to open the dome, and the Repository files . . . well, I’ve found her very helpful.” Selah had pored over the Repository data on Bodhi’s condition, but since talking to the Keeper she knew if she completed the Protocols, Bodhi would be restored like everyone else.

“She’s not telling the truth about something, but I can’t put my finger on it,” Bodhi said.

“Well, I’ll promise not to be alone with her until you figure it out. In the meantime, I’ve found that there’ve been at least sixty novarium. We know none of them made it to the end, and until we make it to the next station we don’t know how many of them actually made it away from here,” Selah said.

Mojica crossed her arms. “So the info Brejian heard must be true. It’s ironic that we’re trapped for three months with the Kinship sworn to protect the novarium. Meanwhile the residents’ super health pill, which allows them to live long enough to help the novarium, is getting weak. But the kicker is they’ve decided that novarium DNA added to STORM can create a perpetual pill. How many things can you find wrong with that theory?”

Selah soaked in the irony that every one of the lost or captured novarium could have been the answer for all. That would have saved her from needing to be the novarium—but it also would have prevented her from meeting her real father . . . and Bodhi.

A ruckus grew louder on the other side of the outer door. Mojica dragged furniture in front of the door, and Bodhi pushed Selah into one of the back rooms. Mari herded the children in with her.

Selah trained her hearing on the shouting voices. She knew Taraji’s and her mother’s voices. She also heard two strange voices. Heavy tones. They must be large men.

Someone screamed. There was a scuffle.

Selah tried to push past Bodhi. “My mother’s in that hall. Let me go.”

A body slammed into the door.

“Stay here!” Bodhi shouted as he and Mojica rushed the door and jerked it open. Taraji kicked a beefy man through the doorway. He flew into the living unit and landed in a heap but came up swinging. Mojica delivered a knockout blow while Taraji subdued the second man and Bodhi ran out of the unit.

“Keep the kids back here,” Selah said to Mari before she darted out the bedroom door and into the great room. She glanced at the man as she ran by. He had a bird tattoo.

Where was Mother? She ran to the curve in the hallway. In the lobby ahead Bodhi swung at a man. He blocked the man’s returning punch and connected with his chin. The man gave a hard blow and Bodhi flew against the corridor wall.

Selah cried out a warning. Bodhi looked toward her, and the man struck him again. Bodhi stumbled back. Selah charged up the long hall as anger welled inside her.

Bodhi drew back and slammed his fist into the man’s stomach. He doubled over. Selah was at full charge as she broke from the hall into the lobby, and just as she was about to launch a thrust at the man, Brejian came running into the lobby, followed by a half dozen security agents.

“Arrest that one there,” Brejian yelled as she pointed.

“There’s two more down in our unit,” Selah shouted.

Brejian pointed at the other agents. “Down the hall that way. Unit three. Get the other two.” The agents hurried off with the first prisoner in tow.

Selah looked around. Pasha sat against the wall near the opening to the hall. Selah’s hands grew moist. She ran to her. “Are you all right?” She wiped one hand on her slacks and stretched it out to help her mother up.

Pasha rose to her feet, unsteady at first. Her long hair, pulled back loosely in a low ponytail, had several escaped tendrils framing her face. “I must confess I’m not used to all this violence.”

Selah hugged her. “Sadly, it’s become a normal and expected part of my day, but the farther west we get, the closer we are to the end of it.”

Bodhi joined them after a heated discussion with Brejian. Anger etched his face. “I wanted to know why she wasn’t with Taraji and Pasha. She said she was but broke away when the three men were bringing them back to the unit so they could grab Selah.”

“That’s what happened,” Pasha said. “The first man Taraji kicked into the unit was holding on to Brejian as we came up the street. She forced him to his knees out on the sidewalk. That’s how she got away.”

“We need weapons,” Bodhi said. They walked back to the room and passed the three captured men as they were hauled away by the agents.

“I’ll talk to the Keeper,” Selah said. She needed to practice her abilities. She should have moved faster and been ready to thrust sooner.

A shimmering heat wave passed in front of her as she entered the open doorway to their unit. She pressed her lips together, turned around, and glared at the Keeper standing there, both fists pressed to her hips.

“I wanted to know that you hadn’t sustained injury,” the Keeper said.

“Next time use a communicator. We need weapons. Now!” Selah said.

“Why?”

“To protect ourselves!”

“Did the other men have weapons?”

“No, but—”

“But what? The others didn’t have weapons because it is against the law to have them here. Should I break the law for you? Do you not know how to protect yourself without using a weapon?”

Selah gritted her teeth. “Yes, I know how to protect myself, and so do the others. I am asking you for additional help.”

“How will that serve you when you leave here?”

She huffed. “Well, at least it will give us a chance to get out of this place alive rather than turn us into staked prey for these animals wanting to drain my blood.”

“You are perfectly prepared to handle anyone who comes against you,” the Keeper said in a calm voice.

Selah stared at him closely. Did he know who was going to come against her? Had she misjudged the trust she had begrudgingly placed in him? “Are you going to help us?”