Romy's Last Stand: Book III of the 2250 Saga Read online

  “If you’re thinking about what happened to you in the north,” he says, “it’s the same one.”

  “But I didn’t die.”

  “You were close,” he laughs. “I remember your state when I came to get you. Remember that?”

  “Oh I remember. You nearly drowned me in my own backyard based on some Soren belief that I needed to die just because I was being lazy.” I exaggerate, but he laughs anyway, his typical loud guffaw. I haven’t heard it in a long time.

  “But I was healed,” I recall. “I needed nanite boosters but they definitely worked.”

  “Yes,” he says. “But I wonder—”

  What would make our nanites fall apart, I think—a lot has changed in Apex over the last several years. Any one of the things we did could have caused this.

  I try to fight the guilt and think of a solution, but there’s only one thing that stays in my mind.

  “Blair,” I say, “what happened to the Biological weapons that you—we—took from the Prospo three years ago?”

  As I speak, his eyes widen even more and he leans back, staring into my eyes. “You remember those,” he says.

  Oh yes, I remember. I know they were put away somewhere in the world, far away, where the Sorens could access them when needed.

  So far, they haven’t been needed. I think. Their location is unknown to me due to ‘intel’ I’m not privy to.

  But the look on Blair’s face tells me that he’s wondering the same thing I am—if all these so-called “illnesses” have anything to do with what happened to the weapons.

  “They’re—safe,” he says. “They’re contained.”

  I stare back at him, noting the tone in his voice. I’m not convinced, but I can’t tell if he’s holding back because he doesn’t trust me or because he’s being monitored or if he simply doesn’t know.

  Still I say, “I’m gonna look into—uhm things—and I’ll come see you tomorrow, okay?”

  “What—where are you going?”

  “Well—nowhere,” I say. “I’ve been relegated to stay on this floor for the next two weeks, but I’ve got some research I can do—I’ll fill you in with what I find, okay?” I point around the room then to my ear, hoping he gets what I’m trying to—badly—mime.

  Understanding on his features, he nods at me and offers me one of his biggest widest smiles.

  “You know, Rome—” he says as I stand to make my way to the door. “You’re fast becoming one of my favourite people on Earth.”

  “Ha!” I say and I keep laughing as I head out of his quarters, pass his guard and drone outside his door, then shut myself up in my room. Larry and Stella are on the bed, watching me. “Good birdies.” I sit next to them. As long as they have eyes on me, the birds don’t follow, unlike the machine drones of late.

  Okay, think Romy, think.

  How will you get rid of whatever invisible reporting drone they have in place in Blair’s quarters?

  But first I hit the hidden tracker on my MirrorComm, to see if my plant on the Vorkian and his prisoner has worked.

  It takes all of a minute for the screen to show a small blinking blue light, narrowing in on the plant.

  Then it slowly moves away from the blinking as it gets smaller and smaller. I see the outline of what must be water as I take in the ripples around it. Then, finally land, to its north. They’re moving at a steady clip. It looks like Sanaa’s right, they’re heading south towards the equator towards where I’d expect the EPrison to stand. Whatever they’re on isn’t moving that fast, but they’ll probably get there in about a week’s time if my calculations are right.

  If my one chance of connecting with the Metrills is heading in that direction, like it or not, I’ll have to find a way to get there myself.

  But how?

  My plans don’t feel like they’ll really take off but at least they keep my head busy, so I get to work figuring out how to get rid of whatever bugs are in Blair’s room.

  Plans

  “Okay,” I warn him, as I stand in his room, holding the small black box in my mind. “This is a test. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have to go back to the drawing board.”

  He frowns at the box in my hand. “What are you planning, Romy?”

  “Just shhhh,” I say. “Talk to me about—well whatever.”

  I have to stay cryptic but if he doesn’t comply, then I’m just going to have to say the alphabet aloud for a few minutes.

  Catching the look in my eyes, he understands what I want and finally starts talking.

  “When I was a kid—” he says as his eyes stay on me.

  I give him a wide grin and nod my head emphatically. Yes, I try to tell him with my eyes, then I put up two fingers to indicate two minutes.

  He keeps talking and I keep nodding, and finally, two minutes later, I press the button on the top of the black box, put my index finger to my mouth to tell him to shush. Blair complies.

  It’s good to have an ally who can understand what I want—without me telling him in words. But I don’t spend much more time admiring our partnership. I press another button on the box, still keeping my index finger on my lips as he watches, his face bemused.

  Finally I say, “We’ve only got two minutes where no one can hear us. So just listen. Frankie is fine. She escaped and she lives in town with Sanaa. I’ve promised them I’d bring you around within two days so she doesn’t come charging in here. I have a plan to get us out tonight, but you need to play along. And we might get hurt. Actually, we might die, but we have to try. We’re going to EPRison—”

  “What—” Blair starts but I put my hand up.

  “Blair, we only have a little time.”

  “But why EPrison?” he says.

  “That’s the only place I can think to find a Metrill right now. And I need to get in touch with them and you need to help. You need to come with.”

  “How do you know they can’t hear us?” he says.

  I tell him quickly that I just recorded two minutes of him yammering on about something in his childhood and I’m playing it back.

  What we’re talking about now is being muffled by the recording. If someone’s indeed listening in, all they’ll overhear is his boring story.

  If they catch on, two minutes of our chatter is more than enough time before one of them gets in here.

  “Clever,” Blair says but I roll my eyes.

  “If you didn’t waste all this time asking me how I got this done,” I say, “we could have talked about more important things.”

  “I’m in, Rome,” he says as I indicate we only have thirty seconds left. “I’ll play along with whatever you want. Okay? I’m with you.”

  And that’s that. We’ve run out of time.

  So I say, “Well that’s interesting. Your childhood, I mean. I still don’t understand how Franklin figures in though.”

  I only meant to keep him chattering about his childhood, I don’t know why my thoughts went straight to her and what she means to him. Still, the words are out so I wait for the response.

  “Why—?” Blair says. “Are you jealous?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous Blair,” I say. “But I’ll admit to being curious. What makes you two so close? What is she to you?”

  Just a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have thought to be this direct with him—well with anyone, really. This new-found confidence I have, to just ask the question that’s floating in my head is a welcome development. What have I got to lose?

  Then he says, “I love her. Other than Sanaa, she’s my only family in this world.”

  And my heart stops. That’s what I’ve got to lose. Ignorance of whatever pain the truth brings me.

  He stays silent for a moment, watching my reaction, waiting for me to say something.

  But my wall is back up and I smile back at him. “Well,” I say. “That’s—nice.”

  I couldn’t come up with anything more intelligent. “And she clearly loves you right back, so that’s—” Don’t say nice, don’
t say nice, “—lovely.” Seriously?

  He smirks and leans forward. “So if you’re not jealous,” he challenges. “What is that you’re feeling right now?”

  I’m suddenly very aware that we’re not really alone, that someone could be listening in on this conversation. It could be Strohm, for all I know. Not that he’d have anything to say to me. I can challenge him on worse things he’s done.

  So I say, “Just admiration, I guess. There’s no one I’ve had in my life that I feel the same way about. I mean there are my parents—well my father. It’s not really the same.”

  The words aren’t entirely everything I feel right now, but they’re the truth. “I guess that’s what it would be like,” I say honestly, “to have a real family. And I didn’t really have a real family—not until Abigail—” I mutter off into nothing.

  “And Strohm,” Blair corrects.

  I stare into his eyes, wondering if he means it or if he’s just playing for whoever’s listening to our convo.

  “Of course,” I say, and leave it at that. I know exactly what I think of my old interviewer, the father of my child who’d died in my arms.

  And I know I don’t “love” him, not in the same way Blair loves Franklin. I know what he means to me the same way I know what I mean to the general. I don’t say any of this out loud to Blair, much as I want to. There’s still a chance we’re being listened to. Talking about it all out in the open isn’t going to do me any favours.

  Still, the smirk on his face remains. “So what are you up to today, Lady Mason?” he asks. The formality reminds me that I do have plans in place.

  “I need to talk to a doctor,” I say, as Blair’s eyebrows rise. “To Doctor Johns specifically.”

  While I wait in my quarters, Strohm opens the door and walks in. “Hey,” he says to my smiling face. “How are you going?”

  “Fine,” I say as I put down the book I’ve been pretending to read. “Busy reading. You?”

  “Okay—”

  “What’s going on out in the world?” I say, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

  “We’re still working on it Rome,” he says, unable to keep irritation out of his.

  I didn’t actually mean to push him for a response on how their search for the Axiom is going, so I bite my tongue.

  “You summoned me.” He runs a hand through his straw hair. The bags under his eyes are heavier than they were last time I saw him. At least I can’t smell alcohol on his breath.

  “I need to see Doctor Johns,” I say. The same doctor that had me impregnated against my will according to the general’s instructions. I grab a handful of my blanket with my left hand, trying not to let Strohm see my reaction.

  “O-kay,” Strohm says. “Why do you need a doctor, and why do you need him specifically?”

  “I’m worried,” I say. “Because I’m—ill, a malaise I once had in the north—he cured me of it the last time it happened. I wanted to talk to him about it again.”

  “O-kay,” Strohm repeats. Then his sky blue eyes grow large. “Malaise?” he says. I wonder if he thinks I’ve got what the people in Apex have had—the thing that’s killing them in the streets.

  “It’s probably nothing, Strohm,” I dismiss. “I got better in Liberty once he’d given me nanoboosters. Probably will again you know? Could you have him come to my quarters? Or could I go visit him even though I’m not allowed off my floor?”

  He frowns and stares at me, as if determining what to do. My “malaise” was nothing, but I’m hoping there’s at least a little part of him that’s worried enough to think of me dying from it.

  “Could another doctor—” he says, and I interrupt him right away, shaking my head vehemently.

  “I don’t—trust—the other doctors, Strohm,” I say. “What if one of them is Axiom? He’s definitely not. I’d been with him, alone, plenty of times. He won’t harm me.”

  My hand on my bedsheet hurts now, the way I’m clenching it hard. Of course he would, I think, as long as the general gives him the directive. Still, Strohm doesn’t know. Strohm needs not know. He just needs to go get the dang doctor already, and bring him to my quarters. I’m relying on him not telling the general this. It’s just a minor thing, Strohm. Come on, work with me.

  When he still doesn’t move, I dig nails into the palm of my hand, drawing blood, and bringing tears to my eyes.

  “Honestly,” I say, “I just can’t get over Abigail dying. It’s that more than anything. I’m stuck in this room, and all I think of is her and how I can’t bring her back to the butterfly room and—”

  He rushes to my side and pulls me into his arms as I sniffle. The guilt racks me and I sob for real, thinking about Abigail. I’m so sorry for using your memory, baby. I’m so sorry. I’m reprehensible.

  “Okay,” Strohm says as he shushes me. “If you think Doctor Johns can help with this, I’ll send him up.”

  As I wait, with my black box in hand, I try to remember Doctor Johns. He’s an inch taller than me, lanky and soft. A bit wiry, and definitely not a fighter. Still, he’s a Soren through and through and most Sorens I know have had some sort of defensive training. So I can’t allow myself to be complacent around him.

  I look around the room, remembering that this is my space, that I have the upper hand.

  When he walks in the first thing I notice is the frown on his face. Of course he’d wonder why I would want to meet with him despite what Strohm’s said.

  Because, despite Strohm’s ignorance of the facts, Doctor Johns is the one who followed through the general’s instructions and violated me when I trusted him most.

  He walks in, staring at me, on edge. I expect he thinks I’ll charge at him, but I’ve got far more important things to worry about today than getting back at him for—that. There’s a time for everything, I tell myself. Now’s not the time.

  He closes my door behind him. “Leader Strohm said you summoned me, Lady Mason,” he says as he stands in front of the door.

  “Please, take a seat Doctor Johns.” I offer him my most empathetic smile. I’m already recording, and counting the seconds in my mind.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “As Leader Strohm indicated to you,” I say, “I’m having a bit of a mood—issue. I believe it’s the malaise that hit me back in Liberty.”

  He acknowledges that Leader Strohm did indeed fill him in. I start yapping about missing Abigail, about not knowing how I can keep on going, about how I wonder if the same nanite booster he’d used on me back them would work now.

  Then he visibly relaxes and pulls a chair up to sit across from me. He checks my pulse, checks my heartbeat, and I let him talk and talk and talk.

  Then finally, when I realize two minutes are up, I jump up and throw him to the ground as I keep my knee on his neck, choking off his gasps.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen now.” I fill him in with my quick plans for the next minute and a half.

  The last thirty seconds, I list what will happen to him, to his family, if he doesn’t do as I instruct. I get into really brutal detail about the consequences.

  Then I ease off his throat and pull him back up to the chair, let him breathe in and out as I place the black box to my side.

  “So,” I say to Doctor Johns. “What do you suggest?” I nod at him, indicating this is the point where he says the exact words I instructed.

  “We will need to get Maya,” he says, word for word what I told him to say. “The Beast in the ocean in the North. We’ll need more of her blood—her fluids—to make a stronger solution for the boosters.”

  Wrench

  “Absolutely unacceptable!”

  Sigh. I wonder if yelling has become Strohm’s go-to tone of voice now. Come to think of it, did he ever yell before our wedding night? But I notice the other people in the meeting room aren’t reacting in the same way I do.

  The PR lady, Zandra, leans as far back from him as possible. Though he doesn’t smell like liquor today. It’s possibl
e he does and I’m just used to it, but now I’m certain this level of heat from Strohm is simply his anger, nothing to do with any sort of chems.

  The meeting room’s on the same floor as my quarters so I didn’t have to go far to come here.

  “I mean what are you even thinking, Romy? We’re having you stay on this floor for your own safety for Odin’s sake, don’t you understand that?”

  I stay still, silent, until his red face starts turning paler. I know there’s no point responding when he’s in this mood. It makes him angrier and nothing I say will register.

  So I wait until his breathing seems to calm slightly.

  “Maya’s our best chance, Strohm.” I look over at Doctor Johns’ face. He watches me, terrified. I hope he stays that way. Little does he know that my threats were only that—threats. Like I’d ever hurt his family. Still, I’m counting on him. This would all unravel if he doesn’t stick to his side of the bargain.

  “She—is,” the doctor stutters as I nod at him. “The chems in her body are a high concentrate of omega three acids and other chems that will be the only thing we’d need to come up with a cure.”

  It’s all bull, of course. These are merely words I fed him to repeat verbatim to Strohm. I have no idea what is in Maya, but I also know she’s the only chance we have right now if my plans tonight are to come through.

  “Okay, okay okay,” Strohm says. “I get that. I get that she’s important. I get that we need her. But why Romy? Why does Romy need to go on this—hunt?”

  Now he’s glaring hard at Minchin, the co-captain of the Elysium and captain of the smaller fishing boat, The Singer. Minchin’s eyes alight as his dreads slightly move when his eyes land on me.

  Minchin’s not really played into my plans, but I’m just hopeful he’s keen to go after Maya again and doesn’t care who tags along.

  He frowns slightly at me as if to think. He knows full well he doesn’t need me. He knows I’m useless on the hunt. All he needs to do is remember the couple of times I was on the hunt with the missions team and he’ll know I’ll be nothing more than bait.