The Seek, page 2
part #2 of New Earth Series
Kyn was standing on their little veranda, watching the street. The dark was unknown and delicious. If you stared long enough, you could make out trees and shapes: the odd bike or kids playhouse; the detritus of life on the farm. It may have been 2081, but in Sweetheart, Georgia, not that much had changed in three hundred years. Life ticked over; the daily routines were sluggishly predictable.
She was used to the isolation—they were the farthest from town. But tonight, with no light at all, it felt like she was the last person on Earth, except she could hear the voices, low and intense, from downstairs. He had said they were going a long way away, into the desert. Such a long way from Sweetheart. And they would move by night, so she would need to get used to this.
She stood and started the routine, watching the street, holding her head as high as she could, remembering Madame Roucheau’s words about posture and position. Stretching high, then coming down hard.
Ballet was solid and reliable. It was physicality and movement. There was nothing new or confusing about it: it had been danced for centuries. Maybe longer, she wasn’t sure.
Up again: en pointe. Now the arabesque, then flicking quickly through first, second, third. Then…
Then it changed. The softness of the darkness gave way to something else. Something high and hard. A noise that picked at her ears: a whine. And then, materialising from the darkness, light, so much light. She was frozen in third position on the veranda, watching as the thing landed, right in the middle of her mother’s orchard. And she knew it was bad. She knew they had been talking, planning. She was not some little girl. She was eleven. No fool. But it hadn’t seemed real; it had just seemed like any of the other remote and pointless things adults discussed, the economy, migration, the Ultimatum. Until now. The thing was low and silver and the whine built to a screaming zenith as it kissed the grass.
Kyn’s toes curled, grasping the solid decking of the veranda, feeling the warmth and realness of it under the calluses of her feet. The timber had retained the heat of the day and she wanted to stay there, feeling it under her skin, something familiar and beloved, because she knew everything was about to change.
And she was frozen, mesmerised by the blue orb of light, in all that darkness. Frozen in third position.
Until the hands grabbed her from behind, around the middle. And that voice, so familiar, like lullabies and laughter, whispered in her ear. ‘Hush Kyn, don’t make a sound, we’re going, now.’
She just nodded because she couldn’t have spoken, even if she had known what to say. She took one last look at the blackness before she was spirited through the house, but it didn’t seem friendly and secretive anymore. It seemed sinister and terrifying. How would they see without any light? How would they know where to go? What might be waiting for them in the darkness, in the desert?
She was lifted up and into her father’s arms, pressed against the sunlight smell of his shirt as they flew through the house, down the backstairs, through the old servants’ quarters, the ones they never used. It was dark, but she knew what these shapes meant. The old dresser, the one that had been in the house since forever, since it had belonged to the slavers; the square shapes on the walls that she knew were family photos; the hulking outline of the old fridge, the electric fridge her father cursed terribly but her mother refused to retire.
She wanted desperately to flick on a light, to make it be just some surprise party and to know that soon everyone would leap up, celebrating. And everything would be okay. But she was not a little girl. She was eleven; and she knew it was the beginning of the end.
And then a slightly lighter rectangle: the back door. The one to the side, leading out to the woods that had featured in her nightmares as a child.
New hands on her, soft and cool. Mama. ‘Thank God, thank God you have her.’
Her father grunted. ‘There’s no god in any of this.’
Her mother sighed and took her from him. Kyn wanted to tell them she was too old, too old to be carried like a baby, but the words wouldn’t come. And she didn’t want them to, not really. Her father had the twins in his arms now; she could hear their sleepy protestations and her father hushing them.
‘Now move.’ Her mother lurched forward towards the wood, and Kyn could smell lavender and hear her muttering under her breath, ‘The Lord is my shepherd…’
They were there, so close. Kyn felt, even in the dream, that she could reach out and touch the spiky edges of the tree she had climbed so many times, the one right at the edge of the wood, from where you could see all of it — the top of the trees, back to the house, across the farm.
And in her sleep, her heart rate started to climb.
***
Kyn woke up, clawing at the syntton bedding, the sounds of her heart booming in her ears. It was hot, so goddamned hot in this bay. She banged on the button near her head and the sidewall slid up, revealing the brown-blackness of her sleeping quarters, punctuated by red directional lights. Some of the Avengers complained that they couldn’t sleep with the red lights on. But not Kyn. Light was good. It was the darkness you needed to fear.
Kyn swung her legs over the edge of the bay, examining them as she waited for her heart rate to still. So pale. If she concentrated hard, she could remember a time when her legs had been brown from hours and hours on her bike and in the sun. Now they were all pale, all the refugees of Earth: vampires in the darkness of space. The thought mixed with the dream, and together they conspired to keep her heart rate elevated. Her head began to spin and she felt the prickles start across her palms.
Think about the mundane. Getting my dome serviced. New boots. Ranking Class 68, now that they are almost done.
But none of it helped. The thoughts started. They were all out here, in the dark, alone. The last of their kind, floating in a series of loosely connected space stations. They were homeless peddlers, trading for their lives, looking for a New Earth. And almost everything they encountered wanted to kill, eat or rob them.
Kyn shook her head; she knew she couldn’t afford this train of thought. The loneliness of it pressed in on her, and she shut her eyes against it. Getting my dome serviced. New boots. Ranking Class 68.
But oh, all that blackness, and so few of them left. The Avengers were the only thing standing between their lost people and the end. She tried not to picture it — their ships, circling and seeking, hoping for a new start, driven back from so many places, a hundred alien suns. She thought about them all, locked in their floating coffins, rattling around, trying to fake normal, and all in the blackness.
Kyn’s breath caught, and when she opened her eyes she saw spots through the brown-black and red. The terror rose in her throat, burning its way out. She was going to scream, or cry, and she wasn’t sure which was worse. Then the panic began, like rising blackness. Would she become part of the darkness, out here for so long, with no one to watch over her, no one who even knew who she was?
Enough. There was only one thing that would chase it away.
Kyn let her feet touch the floor, willing them forward through the bone-melting panic that gripped her. She approached the locker wall and pressed a palm against it. Her door buzzed open and she stepped in, looking for the things she needed in the dim light of the tiny room. As soon as her hand touched the stretchy black fabric, her heart began to settle ever so marginally.
Don’t think about the darkness; just think about this.
She slipped the thing on, tugging one long sleeve down over the telltale red scythe on the inside of her right forearm. Next came the long black wig, pulled tight down over her short blonde crop; then the mask. Finally, her training boots. Even playing this game, she needed the boots.
By the time she reached the club, the panic had found her again. She knew she needed to be in there, quickly. She needed to give herself over to the place to chase it away. She pressed ten galleons into the palm of the huge ex-Avenger on the door. His facial tattoos snarled at Kyn and he swept dead eyes over her and nodded, passing over a small grey pack, no bigger than her palm, with the one arm he still had.
You didn’t get to become an ex-Avenger unless your usefulness was spent.
As Kyn joined the line of bodies pressing forward into the space, she opened the pack, slipping the slim black vibro over her head to settle firmly against the pad on the bony ridge at the front of her throat. Then she dug again in the grey pack, pulling out a tiny purple pill and throwing it into her mouth.
Bottoms up.
The music started to seep into her bones as the line shuffled forward. She was queuing behind two tall blonde girls. One turned to Kyn, her face obscured by her mask but the lines of her body taut. ‘Isn’t this wild?’ Her voice was deep and melodic, impossible to separate as that of a man or a woman.
The second blonde beside her grasped her arm. ‘Wow, you sound freaky, Jyntai,’ she said, her voice the same throaty melody and her face also masked. Both girls touched the vibros at their throats and laughed in unison.
‘Don’t care, don’t care,’ sang the first blonde. ‘I’m gonna fuck me an Avenger tonight.’
The second blonde hushed and tutted, but the first girl would not be silenced. ‘Well, that’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it?’
‘You, maybe,’ her friend jeered, digging her in the ribs and glancing back at Kyn. ‘I’m here to dance.’
And then the line moved and they were gone. Kyn was there, and the Connect was doing its work. Her joints felt loose and liquid, and she heard the girl’s word echoing in her tingling brain. I’m here to dance. She sailed forward to the dance floor, the crush of bodies moving as one teeming human wave to the electric noise infiltrating her brain where Connect met her synapses. She needed movement, to dance. She needed physicality and bodies. And this place might be illegal, and off limits to Avengers, but it was the only place she was going to get them tonight.
She looked around, watching the tall, tight and toned bodies writhe on the dance floor in time with the music, and with the Connect in their bloodstreams. She sure wasn’t the only Avenger here tonight. The masks and vibros assured anonymity for them, but she could have picked them anywhere. Their hard bodies were moving like it was the end of the world. For many, it was, or it would be soon enough. Who could blame them for wanting to dance, and take Connect, and maybe drink, maybe sleep with a groupie.
She laced her hands over her head and threw her head back, tipping back into a flip and landing on the floor again, connecting with her body, driving the darkness away. As she came up, swaying into the lights and music, she watched two tall, masked men with bare chests hold a young woman up to the light. They were lifting her like she was a statue of a goddess, higher and higher, towards the sound. She stretched her long arms high, trying to touch the roof, and they were lifting her effortlessly.
As they brought her down, one of them spun her towards him, holding her against his chest. The other came up behind her and lifted her short silver dress from behind, running his hands over her buttocks. The girl turned and kissed him on the mouth as all three continued to keep time to the music, swaying and grinding. The man holding her from the front undid the skinny straps of her dress, slowly, rhythmically, peeling one side down then the other, to reveal high white breasts.
The girl leaned back to the man behind her, arching her back and lifting her breasts so the one who had undone her strap could lick them. The man standing behind her pressed forward, his snake hips pushing into the girl from behind. The three were as one, swaying close and hot as the two men leaned over her to kiss each other on the mouth. Kyn had no doubt they were Avengers. Their chests were bare and their arms were ripped, both sporting long red scythe tattoos on their right forearms. She rubbed her own arm, tugging the dress down over it. Maybe they could be anonymous with their masks and their vibros alone. Not her. She was the only woman with that scythe on her arm, and if any of them saw it, they would all know immediately who she was.
She pushed the thought away. She was here to dance. And it was working, driving out the blackness, driving away the panic. She could feel bodies pressing in on her, their rhythm building with the music, their skin heating up as their movements became more frenetic. She rose up on her toes, en pointe, and then spun in the thrall of the sound, watching the lights blur in her vision, feeling everything contract to this. Hands snaked around her from behind, but she brushed them off. She kept spinning, moving her hands up toward the roof and the lights, letting her body have some room, giving it permission for a different dance from the one she led it in each day in the training rooms. It felt as though the lights were inside her brain, blurry and alive — pregnant with sound and sweat and movement. It was hot and dark and oh-so-decadent.
When the track ended, she pushed to the bar, adjusting the vibro before she spoke. ‘Old school whiskey.’
The mask on the bartender couldn’t hide his surprise. ‘You got the G for that shit?’
She passed over a hundred galleons. ‘Make it a double.’ Her vibro-ed voice pleased her ears — deep and melodic. But most of all, anonymous.
The squat, stocky barboy nodded and whistled. ‘Yes ma’am.’
The amber liquid was in Kyn’s mouth as soon as the glass hit the bar. So hot; so perfect. It kicked the Connect into a different zone, lighting her up and making her skin tingle; making the world, which had seemed so dark and scary, alight with possibility.
She kicked back from the bar, moving towards the bathrooms, feeling like a gazelle — loose and languid. Powerful. As she headed to the back of the cavernous space, she passed the playrooms. They had black doors with red crosses emblazoned on them, but almost no-one bothered to close them. Tonight, the rooms were teeming. Men and women in various states of dress pressed together — kissing, licking, fucking. She could see it all. All beautiful, and all determined towards this moment, melting into the heat and the music, the Connect liberating them from the fear and the rules and the almost-certainty of impending death. The lights in the rooms were low and dark green, making the twisting, grasping bodies shine as their glow hit sweat and sex.
Normally, Kyn strolled by the playrooms, unmoved. But tonight it was different. Tonight she went slower, enjoying the perversion of it; the wildness. Her eyes flicked over the various scenes briefly as she passed: a room of young men, all ghostly white and naked, kissing and stroking and driving into each other. But no fury, no violence. That was the Connect. Every stroke was passionate, but gentle. In the grip of Connect, love filled you up.
She watched one young man, his head completely shaven behind his green mask, stroking the face of another boy, this one blond, who was kneeling at his feet, his face buried in the first one’s groin. The strokes were feather light, and Kyn was sure if she could lift his mask the shaven headed one would be watching his fellator with soft eyes. It looked like the touch of a lover.
The next room she passed was less crowded. She recognised the girl from the dance floor with the two men who had been lifting her and kissing. The girl was lying on a long white bench, one of the men kneeling between her legs, licking her enthusiastically, while two others stroked her breasts, her face and her arms. She was writhing and crying out, an ecstatic smile visible beneath her masquerade mask.
Kyn was almost disappointed to hit the bathrooms, but she still avoided looking directly at the tall thing of muscle and easy grace who stared at her as she pushed through the doors.
Something about him — the loose ease folded into his big, lean frame — picked at her brain.
But she was only here to dance. And right now; to take a leak.
Chapter Two: Virgin Blood
But he had other ideas.
He was waiting when she emerged, the Connect lighting her skin warm and bright. He leaned lazily against the opposite wall, a slow grin spreading across the lower part of his face, and she could tell he was enjoying the sight of her in the tiny, stretchy dress, despite his mask. Everyone did what he or she could to be anonymous in this place. But he had no chance. Not with that too long, slightly grubby-looking hair grazing his jawline. Everything about this boy — from his stance to his grin — suggested that he didn’t give a shit if the whole place recognised him.
Even though he was taking her in with what looked like a considerable amount of testosterone-laced pleasure, she was almost positive that he didn’t recognise her. If he did, he would have saluted. Even here. Avengers were like that.
‘Hey there, gorgeous.’ Such a shame, about the vibro. Voice was important. ‘I saw you out there, on the dance floor. You sure got some moves.’
‘And about eight years on you, I reckon.’ Down, boy. You’re cute, but I’m not here for that. She knew exactly how cute he was, under that mask and behind the vibro. The interaction with him earlier in the day outside the ice chamber, was fresh in her mind.
‘Age is just a number.’
She almost snorted. Yeah, right. Age was only a number, except when it was the difference between pre and post Apocalypse. This pup may have been born on Earth, but he would only have been two or three when the place went down in flames.
Not eleven.
Eleven was different. Eleven, and you remembered. It was like a line in the sand, a great dividing chasm that you could never cross. Kyn guessed it was weird enough for these kids, growing up as they did, no childhood of riding bikes and climbing trees to haunt their dreams. They grew up in the endless black, the endless quest for the next place. Scavenging and searching. But it was nothing on how weird it was being there when the shit went down. That shit screwed you up from the day it happened ‘til the day you bit the galactic dust.
She studied the boy in the casually-fitted mask. What had he said to her earlier that day?
So why the hell did they let you in?
She tried to work out how much recognition showed in the lines of his fine, hard young body. It was hard to tell; the Connect was fuzzing her natural instincts, but she still guessed he had no idea who he was dealing with. She knew what they all thought of her: heartless bitch. They would never place her here. He would never place her here.
