Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
“Yes.”
“Can you open it?”
“We’re ten floors up. You can’t get out that way.”
She hisses her words at me. “I don’t want to jump. I want to look out.”
I’m annoyed at this request because the shutters are old, and rusty, and a pain in the ass to close after they’ve been opened. I haven’t looked out that window in a couple years, at least. But I go over there, fuck with it for nearly three minutes, and finally the louvers flip open.
I stand aside and present her with the view.
She comes over, lifting her dress up with dainty fingertips, and looks out, pressing her face up to the shutter. She doesn’t say anything.
“Well?” I ask, after many silent seconds tick off.
“I don’t understand what I’m seeing. It’s… very bright.”
“Well, it’s night so… you know. All the fucking lights are on.”
“But even down-city.” She looks over her shoulder at me, wincing. “I mean, the lower end of the canal. There’s no power down there. Not for lights.”
“Of course there’s power down there. There’s power everywhere. Tau City is a Level One metropolitan area.”
“What’s that?” She sticks a finger through the louver, like this is gonna help me see what she’s pointing at.
I lean in and bend down, trying to follow her point. “What’s what?”
“All that down there? Where the up-city towers should be. It looks like… a ruin.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re finally accepting reality. It looks like a ruin because it is a ruin. As I’ve said several times now, there is no god in Tau City. The tower was decommissioned centuries ago. It’s a place for spark addicts now. And… people like me. Who just… kinda hate society and don’t want to participate.”
Suddenly, she whirls around. Out of instinct I take a step back. “Wait! What about Haryet! Did you find her too?”
“Harriet? Who the hell is Harriet?”
“Har-yet. Haryet. She was number eight. She came the night before.”
I point to the floor. “Came here?”
“Yes! Two Maidens in two days!” She says these words with manic excitement. But then she deflates with a long breath of air. “Imogen, Marlowe, Mabel P., Lucy, Mabel S., Piper, Brooke, Haryet, and me. Gemna’s the only one left.”
“Well… I don’t know what to say about that. The only reason I went looking for you is because Stayn asked me to. He can’t come inside the tower himself. Well, I guess he could, but uptight up-city fucks like him think they’ll get addicted to the spark if they even come in once.” I chuckle. “I like that term. Up-city. I’m gonna call him that next time I see him.”
Clara’s face is blank. Like I’m speaking some other language. But she doesn’t yell at me again and she doesn’t throw a tantrum. In fact, I watch in real time as she gives up, flopping down into my chair.
Which makes me point at it. “Uhhh, that’s my chair.”
She looks at the chair, then up at me. “What?”
“My chair. You’re sitting in it and… you should just sit somewhere else. The bed or that one over there by the shower. But I’m warning you, if you touch my weapon again, I’ll break your fingers.”
She laughs. Then laughs again.
“What’s so funny?”
But she doesn’t answer. Just gets up, walks the three paces over to the end of the bed and crawls up it, flopping onto the pillow face down.
I’m not sure what to do next, but I did make a big deal about the chair, so I figure I should sit in it. Which I do. Then put my feet up on the foot stool.
I’m hungry, but there’s no food in here. And the door is locked—which is a mystery I really should solve sooner rather than later. But now that I am sitting, the day catches up with me and I realize that Stayn told me that there was a magnetic lock keeping people out of the location where I found Clara.
But there wasn’t.
There is, however, one on my door right now. That has to be why we can’t open it.
Fuckin’ weird.
My head starts spinning a little with all the sudden mysteries, not to mention the fatigue from all that stair climbing. Plus the hunger, and the added stress of arguing with a strange woman, and the sudden rebirth of my long-dead augments.
At some point during the past few minutes the words ‘hide her’ faded away, but I can still feel the connections. It’s not strong, but I’ve been living with no connections whatsoever for seven years now, so even the slightest bit of spark up there is a major development.
I close my eyes, thinking about this. About the way the blue words fell down like a waterfall. I feel the smile creeping up my face, and the guys all around me. Like I’m there again.
Dusty, it was always dusty. And it was always dangerous too. The Omega Outlands is a lawless place. But there were always moments, in between the deadly ones, when we were all together—me, Jast, Myra, Stepan, and Kirt. And when we were all together like that it was… OK. Maybe not good, but it was OK because we were all still alive.