Thunder (4 page)

Mother tried to smile, but it came off as a pained expression. “My poor child, your drama precedes you. There's still six months of freedom. After your Remembrance tomorrow, you two can start courting. You may find out he's not a bug or a toad. With the abundant petrol that comes as a result of this clan marriage, maybe I can get your father to stop hunting Landers for income.”

Selah had traveled this route before and all it ever did was add to her anger. Her father's last word on the subject revolved around the two clans joining forces. Her marriage would cement the bond, but he was forcing it and ruining her independence. And he wouldn't let her hunt, thus holding her up to ridicule. He was determined to wreck her life at every turn, so she couldn't envision him relenting on hunting Landers.

Selah shook her head. “I don't think he will ever quit. I've watched him talk about Landers. He takes on a whole different persona, like he's vengeful. He once laughed, almost sadistically, when he said the Company is being humane to give them medical care for their memory loss.”

Mother chewed on her lower lip. “It's just a parade of more lost souls.”

“Why do you say that?” Selah's chest started to tingle again. She rubbed at the spot.

“No one has ever come back from there. None of the Landers captured have ever been seen or heard from again in these parts.”

Selah snickered. “I don't think they would come back this way. Think about it. These are the people who put them away in the first place. They're not exactly going to be friends.”

Mother went back to stroking Selah's hair. “I guess you're right, my smart child. But I'd much prefer if you'd just take out your desire to hone your hunting skills on wildlife. Practice on the rabbits or something.”

“That's not the problem! I'm a great hunter. I can catch rabbits better than any of them.”

“Well, maybe that's because they never hunt rabbits.”

“And they never will. They are so cruel. I refuse to share with Cleon and Raza which ones are safe to eat.” Selah looked up at her mother and smiled. “Mother, are you sure I'm not adopted? They're so different from me.”

Mother glanced away, then looked at the clock on the fireplace mantel. “Darling, don't talk so silly. You look just like me. You are definitely my child.”

Selah heaved a sigh. “I don't know. Sometimes Father makes me feel second class with the way he fawns over the boys. He takes them wherever he goes, and he's never invited me along, not once.”

“Your father just doesn't know how to relate to girls. He feels more comfortable with the boys because they act the same.”

“Well, some days he makes me feel like I come from another world.”

Mother laughed. “Dinner and a good night's sleep will help you see things differently. This day will pass and tomorrow will be the start of a whole new life.”

Selah shook her head and pulled away. She propped her elbows on the smooth wooden surface of the table and rested her head in her hands. “I don't think so. I think I've made a mistake.”

“What could you possibly have done that's so terrible?” Mother sat back in the chair.

“If I hadn't tried to capture Bodhi, he might have gotten away.”

Mother raised her eyebrows. “Bodhi? Who's Bodhi?”

“The Lander I tried to capture. His name is Bodhi Locke.”

Mother shot from her chair. “I thought you said you didn't touch him!”

“I didn't.” It bothered her how easily the lie to her mother rolled off her tongue. “He saved me from a bunch of evil boys from Waterside Borough. They were going to kidnap me.”

“Your father needs to know this! I want him to contact the Kingston clan and find those boys before this happens again.”

“They're dead.” The words slipped from Selah's lips in a whisper.

Mother stared at her. “What did you say?”

Selah tipped her head and a tear rolled down her cheek. “They're dead. Bodhi fought them to save me! Me, Mother!” She thumped a fist to her chest. “And then Raza and Cleon showed up. First I'm mad because they stole my catch, then I'm even madder because as a payback for saving my life, I let him get captured. What is wrong with me?” She put her head in her hands and wept.

Mother rushed to her side. “I know, baby. I understand. You were scared—”

“I was not!” Selah bristled at the thought. Her fingers absently traced the scar on her forearm. A tingling invaded her chest again, and she tried to ignore it. “I'm just as brave as they are.”

Mother gave her a look bordering on sympathy. Selah wanted to get away from that look. She darted from the chair. “I need to be alone. Yell when dinner's ready.”

“Your father went to Council and took the team and wagon with him rather than waste fuel, so as soon as dawn breaks one of the boys will have to take the AirStream to retrieve the wagon so they can transport their captive.”

Selah calculated how long it would take Raza to pilot the hovercraft to Council and then drive the team and wagon back. AirStreams traveled only a foot above the road, so it wasn't like he could zip cross-country in a straight line. He was forced to follow the roads.

She shook her head. “They'll wait twenty-four hours from when they found him with me to see if he's still a viable catch. I hope for that poor man's sake the mark may be gone, and they'll have to set him free.”

Selah drummed her fingers on the table surface worn smooth by years of polishing. She counted the hours in her head. Maybe she would have a chance to get him back while Cleon guarded him alone.

Mother turned back to the table. “Dinner will be me, you, and Dane. Do you want soup?”

Selah turned. “No, I don't want soup. I want my catch back. All I can think about are those eyes . . .”

“Don't you dare look like that,” Mother said.

“Look like what?” Selah pulled back her chin.

Mother pointed at her face, making circles in the air with her fingertip. “That wispy, faraway look. I know that look, Selah Rishon Chavez! Don't you dare think of getting involved with a Lander. It will cause you . . . nothing but heartbreak.
And your father . . . well, I don't want to think about what your father would do.”

Selah cocked her head. “That's an odd thing to say. I've never even seen one up close before. Why would you think I'd get involved with a Lander?”

Mother crossed her arms. “No reason at all. But you just keep it that way for your own good, young lady. You're betrothed.”

Selah rolled onto her back. Her eyes remained closed but she detected radiant light filtering through her eyelids. She could hear birds outside her window singing their morning song. She'd made it to her Birth Remembrance! She didn't want to open her eyes. She just wanted to lie still and bask in the glory of being grown. As of yesterday she'd finished school. She'd be allowed to drive an AirStream. Her possibilities were endless . . . Well, not exactly, but she refused to think that far ahead. She would enjoy today.

She sighed and smiled so wide she could feel her cheek muscles heating. Even breathing felt different. She opened her eyes and sat up. The sun poured through thin curtains floating softly on the breeze that pushed its way through the open window. The air smelled fresher than she ever remembered, and the bird song . . . She could hear more birds than—

Selah cocked her head. Could she really hear the ocean waves lapping at the beach several blocks away?

Adrenaline coursed through her chest. What was going on? She scurried from the bed, entangling herself in the covers and plopping to the floor on her bottom. She burst out
laughing. Well, that really looked adult. Maybe she needed to rethink the whole worldly shift that came with an eighteenth Remembrance.

Selah pulled the covers from around her. Still laughing at herself, she brushed the hair from her eyes and stood up. The reflection in the mirror caught her attention. What was that? Her hands flew to her chest. She looked down her nose at the mark as she moved closer to the mirror. She rubbed at it. Put her fingers to her tongue for moisture and rubbed at it again. But it remained. She stared into the mirror.

There was a small wing imprinted on her chest about an inch below her left collarbone. She tipped her head sideways. It looked like a smaller version of the mark she'd seen on the Lander yesterday. She stared. Could this be a trick? Her brothers had done this to her as a Birth Remembrance surprise. Well, surprise! She wasn't amused.

She ran to the bathroom and grabbed a washrag. Wetting it, she scrubbed at the mark. It didn't come off. In fact, it didn't even look applied. It appeared to be part of her skin.

Her hands started to shake. “Mother!” She didn't wait for an answer. “Mother!”

She ran for Mother's bedroom and pushed the door open. The heavily curtained room kept the sunlight at bay. Selah picked her way around a chair and small table and flung herself onto the sleeping woman.

“Mother, help!” she cried as she rubbed at her chest. The area had grown red from her scraping and digging.

Mother jerked awake, eyes bleary with sleep. “Selah, sweetheart.” She yawned. “What's the matter? You act like the house is on fire.”

Tears welled in Selah's eyes. “Worse! Look at this!” she wailed. “The boys must have done it as a joke while I slept.” Although she couldn't figure out how they wouldn't have woken her.

Mother sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She glanced at Selah's chest, then did a double take. Her eyes opened wide, and she reached to touch the winged imprint. Selah could feel her fingers tremble.

“Why do you look scared? This is a joke, right?” Selah asked in a shaky voice.

“Um . . . honey . . .” Mother bit down on her bottom lip. A sob rushed from her throat. “I don't think this is a joke.”

“What are you talking about? Of course it's a joke. This is the Lander symbol, and it's on me. I'm not a Lander!”

Mother's face turned crimson as she withdrew her hand. She turned her head away, and her voice became so small it was almost a whisper. “I thought you said you didn't touch the Lander.”

Should she admit the lie? Selah fiddled with her fingers. How did Mother know? “I . . . It was just—”

Mother shook her head. “You have no idea what you've done.” She wrapped her arms around her own chest, lowered her head, and began to rock back and forth.

Selah angled around her and looked up into her face. “Mother? You're scaring me.”

Mother closed her eyes, tears cascading down her cheeks. Her arms trembled violently as she reached out and hugged Selah so hard the air rushed from her chest.

Selah pulled back and touched her shoulder. “You aren't saying anything. What's wrong? This has to be some stupid
prank by the boys. They were really mad at me for arguing with them about my catch.”

“No, my sweet child, I'm afraid not.” She reached out and stroked Selah's cheek. “I have dreaded for years that this day might come, and now my fears have grown fruit. There is no choice. You must leave, and do it before your father gets back.” She squeezed her eyes shut again. Her bottom lip quivered as she rocked.

Selah leaned away. Her jaw slacked. “Look, I'm sorry I told you a lie. I'll never do it again. Why do I have to leave?” That seemed a radical punishment for so simple a mistake.

Fear enveloped the tingling in her chest until it grew to full-fledged thunder. It felt like all the air had been sucked from the room. She struggled to breathe. “But this is just a joke.”

Mother stared at the mark below her collarbone and shook her head. “No. This is no joke. Your father told me this might happen, but I only halfheartedly believed him.”

“My father? I don't know what he has to do with it, but he can help figure this out when he comes home. He'll be back this morning.”

“That's why you need to go away. Now.”

“Mother, you're talking in circles. I don't understand.”

Mother reared up straight and gripped her by the shoulders. “Your father is
not
your birth father. Your real father was a Lander.”

The Mountain

Dr. Noah Everling sat at his wife's bedside. He leaned over to kiss her hand, careful not to scratch her delicate skin with the two-day-old stubble on his chin. Bethany would chastise him when she woke to his disheveled appearance. His gray and thinning hair growing south of his collar was not a complimentary look—neither was an unstarched shirt minus a tie. And since there were no evening walks, just haphazard meals he'd cobbled together, his stomach had ballooned over his belt. At sixty years old, Everling made every effort to hide most of his new normal under his lab coat.

His elbows rested on the mattress as he held her hand. Her translucent flesh showed every vein and artery. So cool to the touch. Almost like she wasn't alive. The constant blip and clack from the machines testified she indeed remained among the living. He watched her chest rise and fall, agoniz
ing over every shallow breath. He was losing her. He needed this experiment to work.

As if on cue, a smattering of acid bile crept up his throat. He gulped it down and searched his pockets for an antacid, also a new element of his daily regimen. A heavy sigh escaped his lips, and the next breath drew in the antiseptic fumes of the room sterilizer. He'd counted during the night. Every fifteen minutes, the soft swish of the jets embedded in the ceiling cycled the release. A column of sanitizing mist flooded the room to eliminate bacteria. He'd opted for the mist rather than an ultraviolet light sweep. He held misgivings about the effects the light spectrum might have on Bethany's cancer.

Rubber soles squeaked on the tile floor. Someone tiptoed to his side and a hand touched him on the shoulder. “Dr. Everling.”

Everling recognized the voice of his assistant. His head rose. “Yes, Stemple, what is it?”

Bethany had always referred to Stemple as “Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome.” She'd tried to fix him up with several of the younger women, but her matchmaking skills couldn't seem to marry him off. At thirty years old, Drace Stemple declared his body fit and his bachelorhood permanent.

Stemple glanced at his arm crystal. His eyes flashed concern. “It's nearly 8:30 a.m., sir. You've been here all night. Your wife would not like that. You have an executive meeting in a half hour.”

Everling relished his job as head of the Science Consortium. For the last twenty years his prime mandate had been to find ways to enhance the degrading genetic code of Mountain dwellers. He could readily command the necessary perks for
his ailing wife because she was also a scientist. But his father's demise had made him the de facto leader of the Company. Recently, a group that wanted to take Company technology outside the Mountain had challenged his leadership.

A loathing for politics pulled at his chest. He didn't care about meetings, only Bethany's survival.

“I thought I asked you to clear my schedule today. I want to stay in the lab and work on the next set of tests.” Everling struggled to his feet. His joints had stiffened from long hours in a seated position. At his age he shouldn't be this incapacitated, but the secret trial experiments on himself were taking their toll on his nervous system.

Stemple shrugged. “The operational staffers were attuned to your father's management style. They're expecting to get acquainted with you.”

Everling shook his head. “No. I have more important work in the lab.” He looked back as he walked away from Bethany's bed. He'd come back later and check. He might need another course of serum.

For his whole life and then some, his family had led the self-sufficient colony of ten thousand inhabitants as it grew to encompass twenty miles of underground cities and natural resource reclamation operations. Robo-mining and laser-traction allowed the Mountain to run itself without human interference. He didn't have the tenacity or the desire to oversee daily operations as his father had.

As he left the hospital and stepped into the street, the antiseptic odor lingered in his nostrils, mixing with the outdoor ozone smell tinged with floral scents. It created a wild assault on his senses that he always hated. He adjusted his eyes to
the artificial sunlight as a MagLev train zipped through the clear tubular tunnel above the halo–tree line. He followed its silent trail through the cavernous space until it curved out of sight about a mile away and noted the far-off clouds meant an impending shower would soon wash the streets and freshen the air.

He sighed. It must be Tuesday, or were the showers a Wednesday event? Weather patterns were one of the ordinary events he didn't normally follow. But Bethany knew them all. She could practically tell time by the weather outside their living unit. And he was hard-pressed to tell time without her.

Stemple followed close behind as Everling crossed the smooth, nonporous surface of the rocrete composite roadway to his laboratory sitting less than fifty yards from the hospital. He should have been there working. But his irrational fear was if he didn't stay near Bethany, she would get substandard care.

Together the men entered the main lobby and worked their way through myriad halls to the lab section. Stemple smacked the metal access button and waited for the wide glass partition door to slide into the ceiling.

He turned to Everling. “I spent quite a bit of time trying to find you this morning.” He lifted Everling's left arm and deactivated the mute setting on Everling's ComTex. “You really need to stop turning this off.”

Everling released a sigh. The need to be with his wife was something a single man couldn't understand until his own world was being ripped from his grasp. The door lifted and they entered the lab.

“Dr. Everling, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but this oversight is unacceptable.”

Everling and Stemple swung to face the voice.

“No, you're not sorry or you wouldn't have interrupted,” Everling said, venom in his tone. He peered over his antique glasses at the bane of his existence—Charles Ganston III.

The portly man with a receding hairline barged through the doorway just as the glass partition closed.

Everling considered him a throwback. Ganston purposefully wore historical clothing like three-piece suits and bow ties that were as ancient as his desire to proclaim he was the fourth generation of his family. He emerged as part of a growing faction making noises about the size of the Company and its one-man ruling body.

Ganston slowed his charge but continued toward Everling. “Doctor, you have missed almost every meeting we've conducted since your father's death. We would really like to hear your feelings—”

“My feelings on what?” Everling bristled. “Dismantling my father's Company and creating a government to run the Mountain?” He pressed his lips together to avoid saying what he really wanted to. He and Ganston had been rivals since they were children in school. Nothing had changed. Ganston was still trying to take away his power as he had on Youth Council.

“I'm sure you're a man of reason. Just the fact you don't have time to come to a meeting shows how overwhelmed you are trying to run the Science Consortium and the Company. We're trying to shoulder some of your burden,” Ganston said with a half smile.

Everling could feel his face warming. “You can't even say that with a straight face.”

Ganston glanced at Stemple and shrugged before turning back to Everling. “I think you've been working too hard. Your creative imagination seems to have gotten away from itself.”

“Do you think I don't know about your rabble-rousers wanting to move outside?”

Ganston's jaw slacked. “I, uh . . .”

Everling turned to Stemple. “This illustrious antique and his cohorts have convinced a group of businessmen they could filter commerce out of the Mountain and live on the surface again under the real sky and stars.”

“And what's the problem with that?” Ganston recovered his composure. “There are almost ten thousand people living inside this mountain. It's time we moved back out into the world. People are tired of our controlled birth rates and limited occupational opportunities. There may be uncounted hundreds of thousands out there who could create a whole new age of growth.”

Everling slammed his fist on a nearby desk. “You're all fools! Living in this protected environment has negated 99 percent of the diseases people suffered before the Sorrows. Do you want to infect our people with those outsiders?”

Ganston stared into Everling's eyes. “Being in the Mountain didn't protect your wife.”

Everling lunged.

Stemple cut him off before he could reach Ganston. Stemple's youth overcame Everling's rage as he backed the doctor a safe distance away.

Stemple craned his neck toward Ganston. “You should leave, old man, before I let him loose on you.”

Ganston hitched another half smile. He ignored Stemple and peered at Everling. “Drop the self-righteous anger. You've had the same act since we were teenagers.”

Everling tried to force his way past Stemple. “Act? I love my wife more than any person in this Mountain, and I'd do
anything
to save her.”

“Yeah, anything but remain faithful to her,” Ganston said under his breath. Stemple turned to look at him again. Everling dodged past his outstretched arm.

His eyes bulged, burning like his brain was on fire. “Whatever you
think
you know, you'd better keep it to yourself. You hear me? Or I'll kill you.”

Stemple flinched and reached out to restrain Everling. “You don't really mean that.”

“I mean every word.” Everling shook him off and continued toward Ganston, who retreated to the doorway.

Ganston whirled to face him from the safe distance. “We'd only like to help carry the burden of governing.”

Everling raised a fist. “My great-grandfather single-handedly rescued this Mountain from total collapse. None of your kin were worth spit back then.”

This time Ganston lunged.

Everling was not going to let Ganston accuse him of infidelity without being challenged. Stemple struggled to keep them apart.

“You old fogey!” Ganston yelled. “How dare you try to malign my ancestors. They came to this country hundreds
of years before your relatives even climbed out of the pig troughs.”

“Gentlemen, please!” Stemple pleaded. He was clearly trying to keep them from coming to blows. The incident was starting to gather an audience of nearby lab workers.

“How dare you call me an old fogey! You're the same age I am,” Everling said.

A woman walked in between the flailing men and faced Ganston. “Mr. Charles Ganston, I presume.”

Ganston stopped cold. His hands fell to his sides, and his face took on a flushed appearance. “Y-yes,” he stammered.

Everling stopped jostling with Stemple and moved to the side, curious at the exchange.

“I think this laboratory is not the place to air your differences with Dr. Everling. Don't you agree?” She raised an eyebrow.

Ganston dropped his head, then shoved his hands into his pockets. He shot Everling an evil look. “No, I guess it's not the best place for a confrontation.”

“Good. Then let's end this now. I will see you out.” She took Ganston by the arm and led him back through the sliding glass door.

Everling looked at Stemple. “What just happened?”

Stemple shrugged and attempted to straighten his jacket. “I don't know, but I'm glad someone stopped you. I think it's a little silly for grown men to be coming to blows.”

Everling muttered as he made his way into his private lab. For just a moment it struck him as odd that he would have actually relished knocking the snot out of Ganston. He hadn't thought of doing violence to another person in years. It was
a good thing that woman had pulled Ganston away, the old goat.

Everling looked up from the report as Stemple rushed into his office. “Did we get the test results from the latest gene-splicing?” Good results would bolster his spirits right now.

Stemple lowered his gaze. “Sir, the testing was inconclusive. We have a bigger problem.”