Present Day

“Where is Marion?” Leia called out to her Uncle Rafi, who crouched in an odd fashion behind a cluster of bushes, his fingertips twitching over the rifle that lay on the ground by his side.

Instead of answering, he lunged at her and dragged her back behind the shrubs, shoving er down into a crouch with him as he held his finger to his lips.

“What are we hunting?” she whispered, and Rafi shook his head.

“Over there,” he replied raising his finger to a spot deeper in the woods.

“Marion,” she wondered, confused, but then she saw them. It was a group of seven men, most with guns and a few with what looked like clubs, raising enough noise that she knew they weren’t attempting stealth. Without preface, Travers hailed from across several yards away, and the crew spun on him with varying levels of aggression.

As he usually did when one of the other villages took an aggressive stance, Travers raised his hands and donned a disarming smile.

“We should get help,” Leia prompted.

“Just wait,” Rafi disagreed.

“You men after that bear that’s been raging around here lately?” Travers offered.

One of the obvious leaders, a man halfway between Rafi’s and Travers’s height with a full brown beard and almost no hair, took up position at the head of the group. “We’re after whoever stole the goats out of our pen last night and open the sheep corral.” Even from their distance, Leia could see the accusatory bent of his glare.

“Understandable. They branded?”

“Why? You find something?” The man emphasized the word “find” as if it meant much more than what it said.

“Nope. Just wondering if I might help you. I have a good two dozen men I could round up in no time.”

Leia smiled when the men’s threatening posture abruptly cooled.

“As a matter of fact,” Travers continued, “let me call the man over who manages our livestock, and I can ask him if he has seen anything.”

“You think that’s gonna make us feel any better?”

“Well, he’s a smart man, so he might be able to give you something. He’s close by. Rafi! Hey, Rafi, I’ve got a question for you.”

Making sure to keep the tree between himself and the little mob, Rafi rose to his feet, gripping the rifle on his way up. When he stepped from behind the trunk, the firearm hugged against his chest in clear display, the effect was instantaneous. Every an in the group relaxed their stance from aggression to appeasement. Leia always wondered why even people with guns reacted to Rafi that way, but very few people stayed in a rage once the giant arrived on the scene.

Leia understood the men’s frustration. For the past few months, the villages deeper in the woods had seen a rash of thefts and even some violence. Most of the violence outside the dome happened within the isolated villages themselves, usually dealt with within the village itself with little spillover to other towns. Every once in a while, though, the craziness would leech into the surrounding towns. Only those within the shadow of the dome stayed completely untouched, as if the fear of the machines carried enough insecurity with them to ward of instability. As much as she disliked the unnatural domes, they managed a good amount of order, which seemed their purpose.

But at what cost? The Relenting? Relenting was evil – beyond evil – and no one inside even knew it. They just accepted it as the natural order of life. Maybe they couldn’t see it because they didn’t know any different, but when she thought about her father making that choice, losing hope…No, maintaining order at the expense of human lives was not okay, and it never wood be. There had to be a balance somewhere, like Eva and her husband had set up in her village. Something that contained order but didn’t enact it – because contriving events in such a way that people lost hope and asked to die was in every practical way the same as killing them.

So Leia couldn’t delay her mission, not anymore. Her mother had taken the risk for years, and Leia would continue to do the same so that maybe her father would hear about the ANGEL who gave people hope. Then he would have hope and keep fighting.

As she stood to her feet behind the tree, she set her mind back on Marion and getting to the dome. She peered at the men from around the trunk, and since they seemed significantly calmer, she took the chance and move back toward the town to find Marion. There were only really three choices of where she would be if she wasn’t in her cabin: the forest, the Hives, or the dumps.

Not that Leia liked buzzing among the bees, but she preferred it to foraging through the dumps. She wasn’t awful with the technology they scavenged from the refuse, but she preferred the excitement of the new discoveries the bees continually provided: balms for wounds, tinctures for illness, wax for a thousand uses, and Leia’s reason for seeking out Marion. The propolis gloves.

“I’m over here, child,” floated the warm tones from among the hives. Not that Leia received any true direction from the general descriptor since there were over a thousand hives. Every time she saw the vast field, she stood shocked that the city would allow something so obviously organized and enterprising, but the Swags that ran the city seemed intent on convincing the Caged that the “Deplorables” were stunted, misshapen failures of the humankind, incapable of any real thought. Leia scoffed. No one could seem as mindless as the empty souls that wandered inside the dome. Whatever they pumped into the system ensured it, as she well knew from her mishap inside the walls. She hoped never to spend another night inside.

Finally, she noticed the pair of pants that protruded below the line of a table to her left.

“You should not come out here without the proper gear, Leia,” the woman chastised, stepping from behind one of the hives to reveal the light brown hair, streaked with silver, and the slightly rounded form of Ester Kirksey’s best friend.

“I could see the smoke from beyond the hives, and besides, a sting won’t hurt me.”

“I suppose you’re wanting those.” The woman gestured to a table that lay a dozen feet away, just inside the cloud of smoke.

After a quick step, Leia gripped the gloves and slipped gently into her bag. “Perfect, as always,” she hummed, turning back to Marion with a smile.

“Give me a hug, then,” the woman commanded, and Leia complied easily.

“So, you’re going back into town?” the older woman wondered, dubious. “Travers seemed worried.”

“When is he not worried?“ Leia shrugged. “He doesn’t have the same goal that I have.”

“But he feels it his duty to protect you.”

“He is not my father.”

Marion pursed her lips in disapproval. “He doesn’t pretend to be. He protects everyone – you know that.”

“I do,” she conceded, though it damaged her complaint. “Still, I have decided that if I’m going to have any luck finding my father, I’m going to have to move beyond the east gate, and I can’t do that from out here. My mother managed most of the houses in the eastern district; why am I covering the same territory? I think I’ll investigate the south.”

“I understand your reasoning, but I also understand why Travers is so worried. Do you really think it’s a good idea to move so far from escape? There’s nothing on the south, and you don’t want to risk the west or north gate. Don’t you remember what happened to you last time you were stuck inside overnight.”

“I do,” Leia sighed, “but I recovered well enough.”

“After a week of constant companionship and near incarceration lest you do something self-destructive in your stupor.”

“And imagine how trapped my father must be, trapped inside all these years, drugged into mindlessness. Unaware that he has a daughter who loves him. How could a daughter leave that behind because she feared temporary chemical depression? I don’t imagine I will struggle quite as much now that I understand what is happening to me.”

“Your father would not want you to risk your life for him.”

“Maybe not, but I imagine he will be glad when I succeed.”

“Remember that he was raised to this. If he stayed inside, maybe he preferred it.”

Leia pursed her lips at her companion. “Just because someone is born into oppression, does that mean they deserve it? That they wouldn’t rejoice at freedom? Maybe he doesn’t know any better, but he’s at least a decade older than most of the Relenters. I can’t delay anymore.”

Still wearing her frustration, Marion sighed. “Of course, you are right. I just hate that you are the one to do this.”

“Would it be right for me to ask Travers to do it? You know he wouldn’t refuse. And Rafi was nearly nabbed when he went in with me.”

“Because you took so long.”

“Because he is the size of a mountain.” She spun away from her friend. “It is neither their debt nor obligation to help me. Eva told me what it cost my father to protect my mother and me, and I could not ask that of either of my friends.”

“Okay, but how are you treating the sacrifice of your father to risk your own life?” Marion followed her, leaning back into her vision.

“I’m not, Mair. These people aren’t dangerous that way.”

“You don’t think.”

“I talked to my mother for hours. She never saw anyone injured by one of the machines, or even one of the Unspoken.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“What if she didn’t tell you everything?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Marion murmured. “But either way, she only knew about the dangers to the Insiders, not the Remnant – she never knew much about the Remnant until she came outside.”

“Well, regardless, I’m going inside again.”

They had approached the outskirts of the village, and Leia hoped she could end the conversation and send Marion back to the bees. From the little clearing just inside the first row of houses, Travers have started toward them, and Leia did not wish to deal with both of them at once. She lay her hand on Marion’s arm.

“I will be careful – you have my word.”

“That’s fine, dear,” the older woman leaned in for a hug, which Leia returned in kind. Because she had leaned down to embrace Marion, she missed Travers final approach and the look exchanged between the elder woman and the man who played father. When she stood up, though, she began to discern the buzz in the distance. Not the buzz of bees, but of human voices.

“What is this?” she challenged.

Neither seemed willing to answer, but Travers finally conceded, “We have convened the Assembly of Ancients.”

“About me?” Such a dramatic step seemed preposterous in the circumstances – she had been inside several dozen times over the two years since her majority, with no major incidents. She knew her face had turned pink as it often did when she was angry, and it took her a moment to realize that they had each threaded an arm through hers and were pressing her to the meeting house. Halfway there, she started to drag her feet. “This is too much.”

“There are many in the Assembly who care for you, and they did not mind convening for your sake.” Marion threw a look at Travers, and this time Leia caught the exchange of glances.

“She’s right, you know,” he agreed. “After what happened to you last time, the Assembly should be consulted before you go in again. You think that because you have passed two of your eighteen years gliding in among the Bound that you are somehow an expert? If Evangeline were still alive, you would listen to her!” Each of them began to press her forward again, and since she had never really managed much physical rebellion, she found herself stumbling along toward the lofted structure that stood opposite the kitchen and served as a makeshift dance hall, dining hall, and community watering hole.

“You say that, but I never shied from disagreeing with Eva.” Leia tugged her arms out of theirs before they could shove her inside. “As much as I loved her, I had a mother. And my mother insisted that I not sacrifice goodness to fear.”

“And did your mother, then, encourage you to run in among the wolves to save a lamb?” Travers chastised, threading an arm behind her and managing to press her through the door.

“A lamb is not a person. Even for the lamb, I would be sad. But you know as well as I that a person is different.”

“But your near run-in with the MONIFOR could have been disastrous!”

Leia just rolled her eyes. “Why would a MONIFOR even notice me? They’re tuned to the Insiders. And from what I’ve discerned, they are not connected to the Discord in any way, so they can’t exactly track me. The machines are harmless to humans.”

“Their human pets aren’t harmless – the Unspoken?” Marion countered. “They were the ones who nearly killed your father.”

“It was the trampling of a panicked crowd.”

Travers would have none of her casual attitude. “But I would bet that if it became necessary, someone could update the programming of the machines. So, even if you are right about what the machines do at the moment, things could change if you cause too much disturbance.”

“The humans Inside are midwit junkies who can hardly function under the haze.”

“Where do you learn these words?”

She glanced over her shoulder with a grin, taking in his obvious exasperation. “The library, of course.”

“I’ve read almost every book in that library, and I’ve never heard of a ‘midwit.’ And ‘junkie’ is definitely a slang word.”

“Stick to books almost a millennium old. Or, you could try going back only a couple of centuries instead.”

He managed a laugh.” Leia…” He gripped her shoulders and spun her back to face him. “I know I’m not your father, child, but even though I am half your height, I am twice your age. I brought your mother into the village before you were born –”

“And you held her hand as they carted my father away, I know. You have told me this story a thousand times – usually when you are trying to coerce me out of some decision I won’t change.” The thrum of the Ancients now more resembled a hive upset than a subdued buzz – Travers had done it, gotten her through the little corridor and into the main chamber. Now the irritation in her head matched the external rumble of noise.

“Coerce?”

She sidestepped the arm that restrained her, turning her back on the room so she could glare back and forth between Travers and the silent Marion. “Appealing to my mother who died? To my father who is in prison? It’s emotional coercion.”

“I would think that it’s appealing to shared values. Do you think I want this for myself?”

Despite her anger, Leia’s eyes softened. “I know you are trying to protect me, Travers, but it’s because you still see me as a child. I have been dealing with adult responsibilities for three years now, and I’ve been going into the city for two. I’ve been in more than you – even though you are twice my age, as you love to point out. I’m not saying I know everything, but two years of experience – dodging snitches, digging up information, scouting for supplies – you don’t have to worry about me.”

“Everything you just said makes me worry more…”

Before Leia could respond, Rafi approached with an even more deferential air than usual, and Marion stepped away to speak to a tall woman bent with age. “The Assembly is ready,” Rafi prompted. “They already know what you are doing and why, so you won’t have to wait to hear them. Shall I announce you?”

“Now you’re both playing father!” Leia muttered, though she turned back to the room to face the Assembly, lowering her voice even more so they couldn’t hear her. “My dad said he might be in prison ten years, so if he was right, he should have been out of prison a decade ago. I’ve looked over the whole east, as well as a portion of the west and north. The only place I have no concept of is the south – incidentally where the hospital is. Getting in from the outside would prove dangerous, since I would have to fake some injury and trek though the forest, so all I’m going to do is investigate from the inside.”

“But you’ve never been that far into the city,” Travers retorted, and his less talkative companion nodded solemnly.

“Do you really think those robots can deviate from their routine in the least?”

“Those robots are almost human in their thinking, though I admit not entirely.” Unfortunately, Travers had not lowered his voice, and Leia realized that the room had gone silent around them. Whether she wanted it or not, she would now have to sit under the advice of the Ancients.

“They would have been almost human,” one of the elders, who had obviously heard the statement, crackled from several yards away, “if Stairet hadn’t separated them from the source.” His spindly height seemed to give him consequence among the group.

“Stairet?” Leia wondered.

“It wasn’t Stairet,” a tiny elderly woman corrected. “It was Hanser, and they would have been a lot more than human if he hadn’t interfered. They would have killed off the entire human race.”

“But they’re harmless now,” Leia posited, and she resented the cackle of laughter that ricocheted around the circle.

“If you believe that, child,” offered Cherin, a plump woman with deeply tanned skin, “you are not as bright as you are believed to be.”

“I’ve been inside,” Leia contradicted. “I’ve seen the way they deal with the humans. We’ve all seen how they deal with the Remnant on market days.”

“You people would all be helpless without us,” guffawed a loudmouthed, portly man with grizzled hair, and Leia stifled a snicker. The man, Griffin, could have been Travers in thirty years, though she couldn’t imagine Travers relaxing enough to laugh that hard. “Remember the Deluge twenty years ago?” he prompted. “There were two the year you came, Miss Leia, and the first one was a bad one. We lost…how many, Gretchen?”

The tiny woman leaned back in the rocking chair where she had perched herself and stared up at the roof. “I want to say fourteen.”

“Fifteen,” another corrected, and Leia fell into the passive listening she so often utilized when in the presence of the Assembly. The ensuing discussion informed her that the Deluge was a manufactured disease, targeted toward the Remnant; that it only affected the Remnant who live near the domes; that the reason the Swags fight to keep Insiders inside is to avoid an admixture of blood between the inside and outside.

“How do you know all this?” Leia challenged the general group.

The future Travers crossed his arms over his chest. “We have books in our library, girl. I would think as much time as you spend in there, you would have read some of our history.”

“I guess I didn’t notice those.”

Marion smiled an affectionate smile. “Head in the clouds…” she accused lightly, though no one else heard it.

“But what does this have to do with whether or not I can go inside?”

“Let her go!” hollered Griffin. “They won’t pay any attention to her if she doesn’t stay overnight –”

“As long as she doesn’t bring anyone out,” supplied the tiny woman. Gretchen, the future Travers had said.

“I say bring ‘em all out!” barked a tall, thin man with a patch of white hair wrapped around his head from ear to ear. “Those damned Unspoken can’t take on everyone. Maybe she’ll find some parts for Rafi in there that actually work.”

“She’s not gonna steal, Clive,” groused Griffin.

Leia raised her eyebrow at Marion and Travers as the Assembly began to escalate their bickering over the idea of all those “crazy” insiders joining the ranks of the villages.

“You heard them,” she pressed as she backed toward the door. “You should let me go.”

“The Assembly is not the law,” Travers retorted, but Marion placed her hand on his arm.

“No, Travers, but when they agree on something, it’s very often true or right. Leia wants to go, and this seems to confirm that there’s no problem with it. Maybe she can find out something about her father.”

As they passed out of the doorway, she glanced up at Travers, and she could already read his concession. Rafi stepped out after, a grin splitting his face.

“I think Griffin and Yellis are about to come to blows.”

“That’s the tall one, right?” Leia wondered, returning his smile.

“That could be us one day, Travers.”

“I’ve got twenty years on you, pup. I’ll probably be dead by the time you make the Assembly.”

“So, I can go?” Leia interrupted. “I mean, I know I can go, but you’re not going to fight me on this?”

With a sour purse of his lips, he blew out a very disgusted breath. “I won’t fight you this time, but I’ll look for every excuse to fight you the next. I have no faith that these Insiders are as docile as the Assembly claims.”

“Always with the drama…” Leia complained. “I think you underestimate humans.”

“No,” Travers disagreed. “I estimate them as exactly as dangerous as they are, to themselves as well as others. Even among the Remnant, there is as much danger as there is in the Discord. They are just more isolated and so less able to affect the whole race. If Evangeline and her husband hadn’t set up our settlement laws from the outset, we could have had a very different community – certainly, most of the others around us have proven less successful. Remember the time we all camped near the town on the north, and we had to fight off those men who wanted to steal our gear? When your mother approached the authorities, they called the thievery ‘eminent domain,’ as if people could steal what they wanted as long as they were strong enough to take it. And you know there are far more animals in the wild now that humans are largely stuck in the domes. It’s not like your old books.”

“You bring up a very important point…” Leia smiled. “It’s just as dangerous outside the dome and much less predictable, so I am less worried about myself inside than out.”

“As long as you don’t breathe too much of the Curse.”

Leia shivered. Only once had she stayed inside too long, and it had taken her days to slough off the resulting ennui – not to mention the despondency that had sent her toward self-inflicted harm once the Curse wore off. It had given her much more compassion for the people she encountered inside. Not only did they possess no relationships or endeavors to give their life meaning, they fought the very air they breathed to stay alive.

The Curse more than the ANGELs gave her pause, but she had to go inside. Most of the Caged had relented long before her father’s age, and the knowledge created intense urgency in her thoughts. If the memory of her mother and her could not fight past the chemical haze, would he have already Relented? Had he been as despondent as the other souls she encountered every few weeks?

Placing a hand on the arm of each man, she sought to calm them. “Look, even if the ANGELs and the Discord and everything else doesn’t intimidate me, you know that I don’t want any more exposure to the Curse than I have to have. Last time it almost killed me – not the robots or even the men. I am going to look around – that’s all. I will get the information I need and get out as quickly as I can. I promise.”

Rafi pulled her into a hug, his hulking self towering over even her unusual height. When he released her, she turned to hug Travers. “The whole village would lose a star if something happened to you, girl. Remember that you have people here who love you and would suffer your loss.”

“I understand,” she met his eyes, “but I can’t abandon my father.”

Nodding, Travers just sighed and reached up to tug her ear. Leia rolled her eyes, though she had long stopped objecting to the expression of affection. “I’ll be listening for your step, my angel…” He pressed his lips into a terse smile, and Rafi ruffled her golden-brown ringlets. She would have to dampen her hair before she left to return it to order, or she would never pass as an ANGEL.

“Look for me with the sunset.” She backed away from her trio of friends and stepped into the rising dawn.