Chapter Twenty
A Little Transmission
Aside from the moment Sardius showed Jenna what he looked like without his boots on, he left them on the rest of the time. They had two layers if he pulled them apart. The outer layer of the boot layer required a code to be tapped into the heels. The larger boots contained a solid set of tools and useful devices. It was stunning how much fit inside them. Normally, he covered the inner layer of his prosthetic feet with socks so no one was the wiser. Uncovered, it did triple duty. First, it allowed him the same kind of movement as if he had real feet. Second, it contained mechanisms that allowed him to connect to the larger boots. Third, it contained a lock-picking kit, several doses of life-saving drugs, and a round of miniature surgical tools. The inner layer was what Jenna had seen him wear when he had boxed the first night she saw him and it was also how he had presented himself when he used to sleep beside her when she needed him to calm her down when they first started sleeping side by side. In the castle, he mostly opted to wear both layers all the time. He used the tools stored in his boots more often than Jenna would have guessed.
In all her life, Jenna had never imagined that she would be married to an amputee. But she also never imagined that she’d be married to half the words they used to describe Sardius: a rebel, a revolutionary, a pirate, a terrorist, an arsonist, and then somewhere very far down the list of his many careers was that he had worked as her personal assistant. Life unfolded in so many ways, Jenna was continuously shocked by all the surprises.
Sardius did send a message to Ixy. She sent him a message back almost immediately requesting his coordinates. Sardius did not send them.
“Do you think she could trace us to this castle if she wanted to?” Jenna asked cagily.
Sardius scratched the back of his neck. “They’ll be able to figure out that we’re on one of the River Moons, but figuring out which one will be a nightmare.” He shook his head like he was already bored with thinking about everyone they worked with back on Octavia Prime. He stretched and went out in the yard to search for a hangar or a loading dock. He insisted that the castle could not have been built if they didn’t have such a place. He would find it. The only interesting part was whether or not it had a working vehicle.
Jenna wanted to go with him, but honestly, she didn’t have it in her. As soon as he walked out the door she lay down on the couch she had been perched on and went straight to sleep. When she woke up, she touched the device Favel had given her to cut off her fear response. With the tiniest touch, it crumbled in her hand. Jenna couldn’t even find all the pieces. It had turned to dust.
Jenna rolled her eyes. It hadn’t been working earlier and she hadn’t noticed. That was why she was scared she was pregnant and then scared she could never get pregnant.
She placed the remaining pieces and the dust that remained in a little pile on a side table. Sardius would not be able to fix it.
Suddenly knowing your fear disabler wasn’t working made Jenna suddenly scared of everything. Even the red panels in the stained glass windows gave her the creeps. She crossed her legs and sat up. She needed to step past fear. Her jewel would detect when there was danger. That was its job. It just worked overtime when Jenna was afraid.
She had stepped past fear before. The most prominent time in her mind had been when she was in the fish tank with Fallcet over her. She wasn’t afraid. If she lost something like a body part, she felt certain she’d be able to get it back. In the Xypher Zone, there weren’t that many routes for their future. What were they?
Option one was that they’d get picked up by a prison carrier. From there they would be taken to a prison. Perhaps she and Sardius would be separated. Perhaps they’d be kept together. Perhaps they’d be imprisoned. Perhaps they’d be helped and be able to return to their universe and Octavia Prime.
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Option two was for Sardius to find a flyable vehicle in the castle’s hangar. They’d be able to leave. From there, Jenna felt certain Sardius knew how to handle the dimensional shift.
Option three was that they’d hitch a ride from someone else. If they were a friend, they’d be saved. If they were a foe, they’d be dead or delivered to the prisons.
Option four was that they stayed in the castle for an indefinite amount of time. Maybe the owners would come home and help them. Maybe the owners would come home and send them to prison. Maybe they’ll kill them, torture them, or enslave them…
Jenna took a deep breath to calm herself.
Maybe the owners wouldn’t come home at all.
Maybe she’d live her whole life in the castle with Sardius… Which wouldn’t be that bad. In some stories that was what happily-ever-after looked like.
However, when Jenna was running the simulations through her head, she noticed something that surprised her. At each step, there was no guaranteed positive outcome. Things could go bad no matter what happened next. The same thing had been true when she and Sardius had been back at her palace on Octavia Prime. They knew there was something lurking around the planet that could cause them harm. They hadn’t been able to identify it and it did exactly what her enemies hoped it would do. But they had been on their own turf! They had been in the place they should have been the most safe.
Jenna thought it over and she had come to a conclusion when Sardius returned.
“How did it go?” she asked him when he came in the door.
“Poorly. There’s a vehicle, but it’s a wreck. I don’t know if I’ll be able to fix it. If I can fix it, it will take months. I’ll need to make parts for it from scratch and that’s a nightmare and a half. More importantly, I’ve never done it before. It’s an unfamiliar vehicle.” He sat next to her and ran his hands through his hair in exasperation.
“Listen,” she began. “I’ve been thinking and I think we need to call the warden at the women’s prison and get taken out of here as quickly as possible.”
“Why?” Sardius asked.
Jenna turned to him and did her best to explain. “I don’t think we were dropped here on accident. I don’t think we were magically spirited to this spot as part of a grand coincidence. I think this castle, the only thing we could see from where we were dropped, belongs to someone who has plans for us. I do not think it is safe for us to wait here. I think we need to trust our allies in the Xypher Zone.”
“Our allies are prisoners,” Sardius reminded her.
Jenna nodded her agreement but continued her argument. “The Octavians are the ones who arranged for the diplomats to have personal assistants in the Xypher Zone. We need to trust that their arrangement is valuable enough that we will find help when we ask for it. I’m certainly not expecting Ixy to take our side, but whoever is in charge of the program—the warden. The arrangement with the Octavians was important enough to the jailers to give me three new PAs when half their world was on fire. I think that’s where we need to place our trust and get them to fetch us as soon as possible.”
Sardius nodded. “Okay. I’m just going to agree with you. From what I saw in the hangar, this house belongs to Rold’s company. I think I was halfway to reaching that conclusion on my way back to the castle. I’ll call the warden.”
“There is one more thing,” Jenna said, pointing at the little pile of broken bits. “The earpiece Favel gave me to disarm my fear response is broken.”
Sardius glanced at the pile. “It probably happened when we shifted dimensions.”
“Why didn’t anything happen to your boots?” Jenna asked. “If all my equipment is broken, why haven’t your boots?”
“They’re just tools. There are no electric or magnetic fields in them. Besides, all your equipment didn’t break.” He swung the jewel on her crown like a pendulum.
“Oh,” Jenna whispered.
“And not to be too weird or anything, but that jewel is saving your life. Every moment that we’re here, it’s saving your life,” he said gravely. “When I think about it that way, I agree with you more than ever. We have to get out of here, not just here, but the Xypher Zone. We don’t need to discover that your jewel has limits. What if it breaks?” Leaving his question unanswered, he left Jenna on the couch and went to send the warden of the Women’s Prison their location and an SOS signal.