Vessel (16 page)

“He’s looking for me. I must go.”

“Wait … I want to see you again.”

“I’ll find you,” she promised as she slipped out the door, taking my heart with her like she did every time she left.

Alana came to me in my room a few nights later while I slept. I awoke to see her standing by my bed in her red robe, the room only lit by candlelight. She let the robe fall off her shoulders, and I caught my breath. She was naked except for the standard-issue red shorts we all wore. She pulled back the covers of my bed and climbed in next to me. Her skin was icy, her nipples hard against me. I touched her head, her short hair.

“I was wrong about your hair. No one could ever mistake you for a boy,” I whispered, pulling her closer to touch her face with my lips.

Her hands traveled down my body and touched me in ways no woman ever had, setting every cell in me on fire. I kissed her face, her trembling lips, and felt the wetness of tears there. I lifted her chin, but she wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

“Isn’t this what all men want?”

“Stop.”

With great difficulty, I pulled her hands away from me and folded them against her chest. I didn’t want her to stop touching me but something about it was wrong. She looked into my eyes now, confused.

“I’ve never been with a man like you.” She reached out to touch my chin, running her finger over the short stubble there.

“Has anyone ever loved you, Alana?”

“I don’t think so.”

Her answer only made me hold her tighter. It wasn’t right what the world had done to this human being. Could it ever be fixed?

“Tell me a story,” she said.

“What about?” I was so caught up in her smell, like the scent of a rare spice in a faraway market, my mind was blank. She was warm and soft against me.

“Has anyone ever loved you?” she asked.

“Once. Her name was Kara. We were six. She followed me around like a puppy, climbing trees just because I did. And she sneaked me sweets from her mother’s kitchen.”

Alana smiled at that, a glowing, beautiful smile I already knew I’d do anything to see; it was so rare. But there was something that’d been bothering me, and I had to know.

“What you said about Kinder making you the Vessel … What did you mean? Has he hurt you?”

“I knew Kinder was a Red Robe before we were caught.”

“You did?”

“I saw him in the street handing out bread. I ran to tell you, but you were already gone. That’s when they caught me.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“I suppose it was a good thing. Tiber’s tribe had me cornered. I think they might’ve killed me given the chance.”

I knew I disliked Tiber, but I didn’t know it was possible to hate him even more. I felt my jaw harden.

“But Kinder?”

“He’s never touched me unless you count the downloads.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kinder’s been downloading every scrap of information he can lay his hands on for awhile, intending to carry it out with him in his head. But it occurred to him, with his age and injuries, he might not be able to get away. I became the backup plan. He calls me the ‘Vessel’ to carry knowledge to the rest of the world.”

I thought of the downloads I’d experienced and winced. “Then he has hurt you.”

“It’s not so bad. I’ve adjusted. Kinder says my mind was remarkably clean before, so it accepts new data readily. And I know so much now.”

“You know about nuclear then?”

“Yes.”

“And what he wants me to do?”

“Yes. He was thinking of sending me, but he doesn’t want to risk all the effort he’s put into programming me. He was excited when you came. He knew you were someone he could trust.”

“If I don’t kill him first.”

“Recks, this is our only way out of here. Kinder has a plan.”

“Yes, I’m sure he does, and I’m sure he wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice whomever he has to.”

“Kinder will sacrifice himself before any harm comes to me. I know that for certain. He actually speaks sometimes as though he knows he’s not coming with me.”

“And what about me? I’m nothing but a useful pawn to him.” The statement stung me as I said it, as if I hadn’t realized before how much I wanted his approval, perhaps even affection.

“I won’t leave without you, Recks. If Kinder expects me to carry his precious data to the world, he’ll have to find a way to send you with me.”

“You would do that for me?”

“What I feel for you, I’d die without it now. I wanted to die when I thought you were gone.”

Her lips found mine in a tender, urgent kiss, sending sparks through me again.

“You can’t think like that, Alana. If anything happens to Kinder or me you have to keep going. You have to survive.”

She only answered me with another kiss, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to survive without her either.

***

Kinder let us go on like that for a few blissful nights. He hacked the electronic door locks and could open any lock in the compound remotely. Each night, Alana climbed into bed with me and we’d talk until the wee hours. I stroked her bobbed hair, trying to remember how long it was when I’d bundled it up and buried it beneath a hat.

“I’m sorry they cut your hair. It must have been hard for you,” I told her.

“It was at first, but no one cares what I look like here. It’s nice not to have to hide anymore. And it will grow, right?”

“Yes,” I said, intrigued by this new Alana that seemed to emerge from her darkness a little more each day.

“Tell me a story,” she said, like she did every night now.

“Another one?”

“Yes, another!” she cried.

I nestled my face in the crook of her neck. “Once there was a beautiful girl who never let anyone sleep,” I sighed.

“You wish me to leave?” She tried to sit up.

“No!” I said, squeezing her in my arms. “I just can’t seem to keep my eyes open.”

“How about I tell you a story?” she suggested.

“If I can close my eyes while you tell it that would be lovely.”

She drew a soft hand over my face, closing my eyes. “Kinder sent a message with me,” she said, almost like an apology.

I sighed heavily again. Kinder’s plans always seemed to mean trouble for me. “I should have known he’d eventually make me pay for all this time alone with you.”

“Do you regret—”

I cut her off. “Not for a second. I’d do far more to be with you.” I kissed her lips to stop her senseless words. Maybe if I kissed her enough all this talk would fade away, but she continued.

“I’ll bring you the supplies you need. Kinder will disable the locks at precisely one minute after midnight. Each night you’ll search a different level of the compound. Kinder’s searched most of the upper levels. He needs your help with the lower ones.”

“Do you trust him? How do we know he isn’t one of them?”

“I don’t believe he’s a Reticent, or ever has been. He’s just been very adept at gaining their trust.”

“And your trust?” I looked deep into her eyes, so like my own.

“I trust him to get us out of here. He knows their weaknesses. And he has no love for their brand of control.”

I had to agree with her there.

Over the next few nights, Alana brought me all manner of things—maps of duct systems, self-contained torches powered by battery, and communication radios, also powered by simple batteries Kinder had built himself with bits of copper. Really quite ingenious. Last she brought the signal devices, small, black squares of plastic. They were just the sort of things that would get a commoner burned for heresy. They had “Kinder” written all over them.

“He wants you to place one of these on each level you visit and anywhere you suspect the Reticents are making power,” Alana told me.

“What do they do?” I asked, turning one over in my hand. It was only about the size of a fortune teller’s card deck.

“I’m not sure exactly. They collect data of some sort. They’ll link back to Kinder’s computer.”

“When is all this snooping to start?”

“Tomorrow night. Are you ready?”

“I guess I’ll have to be.”

Alana smiled and gave me a warm hug. “I’ll be with you every step.”

Kinder’s hunches proved to be just that—hunches. He’d picked about here and there, but he hadn’t crawled through the vent system on his hands and knees for hours like I was now. After the first few tries, I insisted he get me some kneepads. Each time, I went further into the underground facility. There were storerooms, server rooms, even rooms where recruits made our clothing and other goods.

The deeper levels looked like mines from the Dark Days with rock caverns big enough to drive a truck through. Indeed, there were tractors and trucks mining ore. Of course, there were no ducts on those levels. I had to use the elevators, or worse, stairs.

Access to the stairs was hidden, but Kinder discovered it while studying the building plans he unearthed in the library. I did most of my exploring at night, which was beginning to interfere with my sleep. Even on the nights Alana visited me, I hardly stayed awake, but even sleeping next to her made me happy. Maybe I didn’t care if I ever found the power source. I was beginning to think it didn’t exist.

Now I crawled through a vent I was fairly certain I hadn’t noticed before on sub-level thirteen. After a short scramble, I approached an opening where I found myself looking down on an enormous pool of blue-green water. Never having seen a body of water in the compound before, I was intrigued. I hovered there a few minutes, watching the water for any sign of movement, holding my breath. Nothing stirred. I could hear Kinder’s usual warning in my head: “Haste makes waste.”

No one was there, just a low mechanical hum issuing from somewhere. Thinking it would definitely be of interest to Kinder, I stuck one of his monitors on the wall of the vent. I’d been leaving them everywhere I went for him to receive signals from, and they functioned as a sort of a sign to myself of which vents I’d already been through.

I was way too high to get down from the vent, so I shimmied further along the ceiling of the room. I tamped down the excitement thumping in my chest. I reasoned that it could be nothing at all. Perhaps it was an underground aquaculture farm of some sort but I knew there weren’t any fish in that water. I needed a closer look to be sure.

I reached the wall and discovered the vent took a ninety-degree turn downward. I knew from hours in this ventilation system that there’d be an opening at the bottom. I pushed my back against one side and braced myself against the other so I could control my descent. The technique worked well for vertical shafts.

At the bottom, I waited again, watching though the vent for any sign of movement. Fluorescent light flooded the room, brighter than most of the empty rooms in the compound. It glowed an unnatural blue color, cold like the snow that covered the mountains now.

I carefully detached the grate and slipped into the room. A sharp smell I didn’t recognize stung my nose and tears sprang from my eyes. What was this place?

I rubbed my stinging eyes, my back up against the wall. To my right was a large window that opened into another room. From where I stood plastered against the wall I couldn’t see if anyone was watching through the window. There was still no sound but the hum.

I leaned forward slightly, seeing without being seen. The room, a control room of some kind illuminated with panels of multicolored lights, appeared empty. I leaned forward a little further to get a better view. Inside at one of the consoles was a technician very much absorbed in tapping his computer screen almost frantically.

“I don’t know why,” he said loud enough for me to hear through the glass. “The temperature’s gone up two degrees in the last four minutes. It’s like someone’s inside the room.”

I sucked in my breath and pressed into the wall again. They knew something was wrong. I’d upset some balance by being there. It had to be the place Kinder was looking for.

I inched my way back toward the vent. Before I could squeeze myself inside, the door opened and someone in a space suit emerged. At least it looked kind of like the space suits I’d seen on my downloads of human history. I froze in place. The person in the suit lumbered forward with an awkward gait caused by the stiff material he wore. He walked straight toward the pool. His hood must have blocked his vision. He focused on the pool and a gauge of some kind he held in his hand.