Rain of Tears (2 page)

“You do realise that the city will now be exposed to the standard weather patterns of this area? You will always have enough food and water, but you need to alter your clothing for the wind storms that were endemic to this area before the city was built.”

“I understand.” Mayor Hobbs brushed at his clothing.

She chuckled. “There is a shower behind you to the left. I had a chance to explore earlier. If you want to change clothing, there is another panel on your right. He was tubbier and shorter than you, but they will do in a pinch. Would you like me to see if one of your voters can find you something?”

He opened the panel with the previous mayor’s clothing. “Please. It looks like a peacock barfed in here.”

She chuckled at the image and headed out the door while he headed for the shower and started scrubbing.

The guards on the outer door surprised her. “Your new mayor needs clothing that fits.”

One of them nodded and trotted away. The remaining guard stared at her. “You are really causing the rain right now?”

She shrugged. “Everyone has their talents. That is one of mine.”

“You have others?”

She grinned. “I have a wicked poker face.” She winked and returned to the mayor’s office.

Hobbs left the bathroom wearing only a towel. He stopped short when he saw her. “Rain, you are still here.”

“One of your guards is going to do some shopping for you.” She whistled and sat on the couch. “So, when were you going to tell me that you are a Citadel rep?”

He jolted. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You are not from Jarko. The sun hasn’t beaten your skin. The latent mineral content in the food and water hasn’t whitened your nails. So, why are you here?”

Unrik paused, a smile slowly crossed his features. “You are very good. Your sisters didn’t spend much time with living beings, so no one knew how savvy you would be.”

She snorted. “Not a flattering assessment but fairly accurate. I was the only one designed for interaction with the public.” Reyan laughed. “I have people skills, though I rarely use them.”

He nodded. “Why did you wait so long to come here?”

Reyan arched her brow and began to pace. “This city has been the pain in my ass since they started with the weather machine. I have been travelling the rest of Jarko, mitigating the disaster that they created. By altering the weather patterns, they have alternately sent the rest of the world into drought or flooding. I have spent the last three hundred years pacing the land and fixing the weather as I go. I can’t keep up, so I have encouraged other continents to gather their settlements in areas that are easy to maintain until we can settle this damned city.”

“You feel very strongly about this.”

“Not only has this weather machine killed folk here, under the guise of summoning me, but it has caused starvation and disease across the rest of the world. I find that hard to forgive, but killing all the folk here just seemed a little extreme somehow.”

“So, you just got here from…”

“The northern continent. It takes me a while to walk since this city has ceased to produce or import any tech that would benefit the rest of Jarko. With the wild weather, there has been uncontrolled corrosion and destruction of the tech. This city used to be a hub of importation.” She stood next to the window and looked out over the neglected buildings through the light haze of the rain.

“Who contacted you?”

“Oh. A year ago, a shuttle landed and messengers brought a representative to me. It was a woman with a crystal around her neck. I think her name was Soul Keeper. She gave me a tiny com unit and an offer. They would provide whatever I needed to stabilize Jarko and I would offer myself to the Citadel.”

Mayor Hobb looked at her with wide eyes. “Did she know who you are?”

Reyan shrugged. “I doubt it. Few off Jarko know who or what I am. Did you know before you arrived?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “No. I learned of you just before I was arrested. I knew about the Destroyer, but I didn’t think there was another Ichadran here.”

Reyan could taste the dust in the rain as it watered the land at long last. “Why are you here?”

“I am an agricultural specialist. I was supposed to be helping the locals build a hydroponic system that would sustain the population. Well, until the former mayor tossed me in prison. I must thank you for your timely appearance, by the way. They were about to dose me and drown me in the square.”

A knock on the door distracted them both.

Reyan walked over and opened the heavy wood door, taking the bodysuit with a smile. The guard was soaked and grinning from ear to ear. He winked and bowed low as he resumed his post at the mayor’s door.

Smiling, she closed the door and ended up face to chest with Unrik. It was a very distracting chest. “Oh. Uh, hello. Here is your clothing.”

He sighed, “Thank goodness. I was beginning to feel self-conscious.”

Without another word, he walked to the desk, dropped the towel and started getting dressed.

As quickly as she could without seeming embarrassed, Reyan went out to stare at her rain. She swallowed as she realised that the gentle sprinkle had turned into a downpour in her moment of distraction. He was a very effective distraction, so she kept her back to him while he covered up. It gave her time to reduce the rain to a more helpful and less destructive method of irrigation.

Chapter Three

The new mayor took his seat at the desk and cleared his throat. “So, where is the water table in this schematic?”

Now that he was dressed again, she could concentrate. She pointed out the markings near the dome. “The water table is here. This block is the pump, and here are the entryways.”

He nodded. “This is a well-designed plan. How long have you been planning it?”

“The initial plan began three hundred years ago, but the water table moved as the city drained their initial source, so it had to be adjusted to leave the city exposed to the elements. Are you prepared to break that to the population, Mayor Hobbs?”

He absently nodded. “Interim Mayor. I will arrange an election as soon as this is set up and running.”

“You will need to get the textiles sector up and running. They will need a weave designed in the southern reaches to repel the wind, because for the next few years, Jarko will be heaving a huge sigh and this area will take the hit.”

“You are sure that the weather will respond so violently?”

She raised one eyebrow at him. “Pretty sure. I have been doing this for a while.”

Reyan was amazed to watch colour creep into his cheeks.

“Right. I am sorry. I was unprepared to actually meet you.”

“It’s fine. I am aware I don’t look my age. Well, if you are content with the plan, shall we call the ship?”

He located the com and started punching codes until he saw her standing with her arms crossed. “Oh, right. Your call.”

“You can go first but be brief. After being drowned today, I need to recharge a little.”

Unrik blushed again and continued until he made his connection. “Hello, Relay? This is Unrik Hobbs on Jarko. I have control over Nekahar, and I have made contact with the third Ichadran.”

“Rain is there?”

The voice came clearly through the com unit.

Unrik nodded for her to answer.

Reyan stepped forward. “Yes, madam. I am here. I am ready to complete the agreement that I drafted with Soul Keeper.”

“Excellent. I will send the notice to the Argon Tak. You will have everything on your list within the day.”

Reyan was surprised. “They are that close?”

“They are in orbit. We sent a shuttle down to check on you, and they told us you were on the way to Nekahar. It was only a matter of time. Do what you have to do. We will wait for you to reset Jarko to your satisfaction.”

“Thank you, madam.”

“Call me Relay.”

“Thank you, Relay.” Reyan waved her hand to Unrik to indicate it was now his call.

“Relay, Rain has presented me with a full plan to equip Nekahar with a domed farming community. I believe that it is executable, but we will need some seeds and special crops from the agricultural archive.”

Relay’s voice was amused. “She has already requested several species that should fit the bill. They are coming down with the dome and the machinery.”

“Excellent. I look forward to their arrival.” He smiled brightly. “Um, can they bring down some bodysuits? My clothing was destroyed.”

“Of course. I am sure you will do fine. How long do you think it will take to implement the farming?”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “Less than sixty days. We should have a harvest by then and be onto our second round.”

“Good, the Argon Tak asks that you have the weather machine ready to move by tomorrow. Can you do it?”

Reyan watched as Unrik’s eyes blinked rapidly.

The second set of lids became apparent in his agitation. “Um. I don’t know.”

Reyan smiled. “Yes, it will be ready to move in four hours.”

“Excellent. I will give the ship their final instructions. Thank you for your help, Rain.”

“It is about time this planet was set to rights. I am glad it is finally happening.”

The com call ended, and Unrik’s gaze locked with hers. “Ready to go in four hours?”

“Come on, Mr. Mayor. Grab a wrench. We have work to do.” She chuckled and headed out through the huge double doors.

She heard him scramble to keep up, and by the time they exited at street level, he was next to her. “You really don’t wait around, do you?”

She chuckled. “No. There is always somewhere else to be. I did a rotation in this system until the Nekahar weather machine started up. Then, I was stuck here trying to undo the damage that it was causing to the rest of the world.”

The crowd waiting in the street cheered as they appeared.

Reyan flipped her hood back up over her head as the two guards tried to keep up with her and Unrik.

“Why are you covering your head? The water isn’t touching you.” Unrik’s words were said in a low tone as they passed through the crowd and down the street toward the weather machine.

“Force of habit. No one has this particular shade of hair on Jarko naturally, though several young women mimic it when I am passing through an area.”

“They dye their hair pink?”

“It’s lavender.” She sighed and moved to the bane of her existence and the only reason she was on Jarko. Fortunately, the weather station was central to the city hall and the mayor’s office.

The station was under guard, but a few words from the new mayor’s guards and the men stepped aside. The dome of the building was huge. It was designed to make the populace think that the machine was huge and beyond theft. It wasn’t really that large. Reyan had designed it two hundred years before it was built, and she never expected her doodled designs to be seen, let alone sold and built here.

This was the prototype, and with the help of folk over the centuries, the design had never been considered entirely successful. Reyan had felt bad when she organized guerrilla attacks on the weather machine, but the results had enabled her to keep on top of the havoc that was occurring because of her lack of judgement.

“How do you know where you are going?” Unrik was curious as he followed her through the maze of corridors that led to a small room marked
Maintenance
.

“I have been here before.” She didn’t want to mess with finding the administrator, so she tried the door, and when it was locked, she extended her hand and aimed a blizzard at the metal.

“What are you doing?”

“Opening the door, Mr. Questions.” It took concentration to direct cold and air, so she shifted until she was blocking his view of the door. Another minute and she heard the distinctive crack. She backed up and kicked the door with all her considerable strength. The knob shattered and the door swung inward with a bang.

The room was filled with wires, equipment and her precious weather system. Whistling, she grabbed a wrench and started on one of the bolts that anchored it to the floor. As soon as she touched it, the power drained and it hiccupped softly. “It’s okay, baby. Mom’s here.”

“It is sentient?”

“Not as much as it should be. That is my fault. I had it crippled a few years ago, and since it just crashed over a year ago, I can only imagine the struggle she was under.” Reyan worked on the opposite bolt while Unrik took up the one in between.

“How did you cripple it?”

She shrugged. “I designed in a few fail safes, but in the intervening years, they tinkered her into someone I didn’t recognize, but she still had the same bones, so I was able to work with that.”

Unrik froze. “You designed it?”

“It was one night eight hundred years ago. The Ichadrans were gone, and I was wondering what could replace me if I decided to follow them.” Reyan moved around and worked on the last bolt.

“You were thinking about death?”

“Alcohol may have been involved.” She waved off that line of discussion and kept working. “I was on Jurla and hanging around with friends when one of them brought me some paper and a pen, and I began to design her. I left the designs with Redmiril for safekeeping, and while I was gone off to Jatkil, there was a coup and his home was seized by the new government. My plans were left in their archives for years until a visiting Jarko scientist discovered them, and he bought them, taking them back to his home and promising to replicate the experiment for the new Jurla government if it was successful. He lied.”

The bolt came undone, and she whirled it loose with her hands as she had its predecessors.

She pressed icons on the wall, and as a dolly popped out and slid across the floor, she rubbed her hands together. She locked the wheels and looked to her new friend. “Will you help me lift? It’s a little fused to the block.”

“Of course.” He positioned himself on the opposite side of the weather machine, and when she gave a three count, the machine popped loose and she heard the tearing of fabric.

“Did you just rip your shirt?”

“Keep moving. This thing is heavy.” He muttered it quietly, but his face was bright pink with embarrassment, not exertion.