Eden knew what the message would say as soon as her phone buzzed in her pocket. Did you put the inventory order through yet? She sighed and tossed her phone onto the soft artificial grass beside her without answering Beth. A few more moments of investigation in the kitchen would lead Beth to the note Eden had left, confirming that the inventory order had been placed. There was only so much that could be grown, even under the staggering influence of Cardinal Enterprises, in the secondary dome that housed the Farm. Haven had cornered the market, back in the early days just after the Exodus, on growing the majority of the corn, wheat, and soy that was used in the city and shipped out across the globe. Most other necessities–things like animal proteins, fruits and vegetables–were, in turn, imported from sister cities. Back in the early days, large enough amounts of those extras had been grown by Havenites on the land that they had maintained on the outskirts of the Farm. Silas had loved to tell a young Eden stories about how, when he had been a young man tending the Cooper plot, the neighboring plot had housed a hutch of chickens. Elena had traded vegetables for eggs, but before Eden was yet old enough to toddle around with the chicks, Cardinal Enterprises had begun making offers too good to refuse. The mismatch of different specialty farms had disappeared quickly; the Coopers’ disappeared near last of all but, still, it did disappear. These days, anything exciting had to be ordered and shipped into the city.
Eden’s phone buzzed again and she groaned, ignoring it. Beth was on her own and would have to get along without Eden’s help today. She hadn’t had a full day off in a week, and nothing short of true disaster would draw her back into the kitchen. Perhaps not even then, she mused as she stretched her legs out in the grass, letting the plastic blades tickle her skin. She had the exercise track to herself; the last squad had finished their training session just after dawn, right on schedule. It was nearly midday and Eden was itching to run. She’d forced herself to sleep in, something Rory had sternly recommended. She could tell he hadn’t taken his own advice, judging by the dark bags beneath his own eyes. He’d been different, since he’d stopped working for the city and started working for Cardinal Enterprises. It had only taken a few weeks to turn him into a shadow of the Rory who’d worked on the Garden, full of jittery excitement. He hadn’t taken any of Eden’s concerns seriously, of course, but she’d expected that. That was something she planned to work on later, once her own mental health had been attended to.
She didn’t want to think about the pressing weight of everything else anymore: her parents’ lost livelihoods, Rory’s exhaustion, Beth’s confusion. Instead, she finished her stretches in the soft artificial grass and stood, wiping her palms on her shorts. She moved from the grass onto the rubber track and dropped into an easy crouch. She counted her breaths. On a count of three, Eden took off down the track, her legs beating against the ground, pumping in time with her racing heartbeat. She rounded the first corner and then the second, and settled into a comfortable pace for the long stretch to the third corner. Sweat collected across her brow and her ponytail beat against her shoulders with each step. The third corner led quickly into the fourth, but Eden didn’t stop at one lap. She was flying, away from the demands of the kitchen, the Cards, away from every stress or trouble she’d thought she had moments ago. Eden grinned and picked up her speed, pushing herself harder than usual. Blood pumping, heart racing, muscle aching joy spread through her.
For two laps, she had bliss, but as she rounded the last corner for a second time, she saw that she was no longer alone. Hal. He was standing beside the track, having split off from his squad as they passed the exercise track on their way back to campus. Eden guessed they’d had a morning shift patrolling the Garden as the festival was being set up, and then realized she was already devoting too much brain power to his presence. She cursed and turned her eyes back to the track, ignoring him as she began another lap. He was trying to throw her off, but it wouldn’t work. She was flying down the track, legs screaming for mercy.
She was nearing the finish, the end of her four laps, desperate to throw herself down on the ground. As she rounded the last corner, Hal fell into step beside her, and she pushed her exhaustion away. Her lungs were burning now; each breath an agony. She fought through it, concentrating on the steady pull of air into her lungs instead of the burn. As they rounded the second corner, neck and neck, she began to pull away, putting more distance between the two until she rounded the third corner by herself. He was rounding the third corner as Eden pulled into the home stretch, his face beet red.
With a healthy lead, Eden crossed the finish line and pumped her fist in victory as she did so. She let herself tumble into the grass, grinning despite the burn in her legs and the sweat dripping down her face. She started stretching immediately, almost regretting the pain that would come later. Hal crossed the finish line seconds later, his face almost as red as his uniform.
“I’ve worked a full shift,” he said through quiet gasps, hands on his knees. With effort, he straightened and tried to get his breathing under control. “Otherwise, I’d have beat you.”
She scowled back at him. “What are you doing out here?”
“I’ve got more of a right to this track than you,” he said. “Funny how you turn Mara down and can’t stay off our track.”
“I hear they wouldn’t let you into the convention.” Eden regretted it as soon as she said it but she kept her eyes forward, focusing on her stretch. She shouldn’t have said anything but, as often happened around Hal, she spoke more quickly than she thought. Rory had told her about Hal’s ejection from Paradise with a laugh when he returned, although he hadn’t said much about the trip as a whole. The whole team had returned from the convention a day early, and no one could give a reason why. Most employees didn’t care one way or the other, but it was just another loose marble rolling around Eden’s head. Usually, it was impossible to shut Rory up about what was going on in his work, whether that be dramas between colleagues or boring scientific commentary that she rarely pretended to follow. Since returning from Paradise, Eden hadn’t gotten much more from him besides an admittedly funny description of Hal’s face as the Minister of Paradise ordered him out. Eden conjured the image in her mind again and fought the urge to laugh.
Hal stiffened but said nothing, his jaw set in a hard line. Eden got to her feet and grabbed her water bottle from the grass. Somehow, his temper hadn’t ignited; she’d gotten lucky. Hal had been a hothead since before their school years, and the Card uniform he wore only made him worse.
“Leaving already?” he asked. “Afraid of a rematch?”
She ignored his taunts and focused on forcing her tired muscles to walk off the field. There would be no salvaging this as a workout, so the best she could do was leave with her victory.
“You’re afraid of a lot of things, I guess.”
It wasn’t worth it. She knew it wasn’t worth it and she ordered herself not to turn. Her heart was still racing; a confrontation with Hal would do nothing good. She should keep walking away.
“Alex Jepsen was my friend,” Hal said. When Eden paused, but did not turn, he continued. “Watch your back. Wouldn’t want to be next.”
Hal’s last venom laced words chased each other in circles through Eden’s mind as she left the exercise field and retreated back into the maw of Cardinal Enterprises Main Campus. As far as confrontations went, this hadn’t been so bad, she realized. With a shaking hand, she reached up to wipe the sweat from her brow and fought the urge to sink to the floor in the lobby to rest. People milled around her as she made her way to the elevator bank along the back wall, keeping a wide berth as they passed. She delicately sniffed at her shirt and winced. Victory came at a price.
Eden struggled to clear her mind as she let the elevator spirit her away to the second floor. She showered and changed in her dorm before tying her damp hair back into a braid and setting out again. She didn’t intend to spend any of her day off cooped up in her dorm, despite all the work she had put into hiding the sterile walls and blocky corporate furniture behind posters and artificial greenery, plush blankets and eclectic art. From her window, she had been able to see the festival picking up into full swing in the Garden and she’d already missed enough.
She found Rory’s office easily this time and let herself in with a short knock that he had no time to answer. Rory was hunched over his desk, his face a bit more gaunt and shadowed. Had he been eating? A quick peek at the corner of his desk confirmed her suspicions; the last lunch delivery was still wrapped and sealed. Rory didn’t look up immediately when the door opened or when Eden stepped into the room; he took his glasses from his face and rubbed his eyes tiredly. When he replaced them, he blinked a few times in surprise, before his face finally broke into a warm smile.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” he said. “Don’t just stand there.” He patted the corner of his desk, sheepishly noticing his untouched lunch and pitching it unceremoniously onto the floor. He patted his desk again. “Come sit.”
Eden let the door swing shut behind her and hoisted herself up onto the corner of his desk. Rory swiveled his chair away from his computer, not bothering to close out of his program, and Eden glanced at the screen out of idle curiosity. She understood very little of most of Rory’s work and the majority of the words were dry or uninteresting, but one unfamiliar word stood out: Paradisium. It was repeated again and again through the report.
“That’s nothing,” Rory said quickly, following Eden’s gaze too slowly and closing the program on his screen. Rory was a bad liar. A familiar bead of sweat appeared on his brow, one she’d known to look for since they were children.
Eden narrowed her eyes at him. “Nothing?”
“Nothing important.”
“You’re awfully engrossed in whatever is not important.”
“You know me,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “Always wrapped up in whatever it is. What are you up to today?”
Eden hesitated. It wasn’t like Rory to hide things, and it was obviously just as uncomfortable for him as it was for her. He’d never done this before he’d come to work for Cardinal Enterprises. When he’d worked for the city, he’d done nothing but ramble about his projects or rant about his colleagues. Now he didn’t do either. Or if he did, he didn’t do that with her anymore.
“You’ve been working non-stop since you got back from the convention! We’ve barely had a chance to catch up since you’ve been home. I’m going to the Garden to check out the festival. Come with me. Please?”
Rory opened and closed his mouth a few times before admitting, “I can’t today. I’ve got too much to do.”
“You just told me it wasn’t important, Rory.”
“I know but I--”
“What’s Paradisium?” she asked suddenly, tripping over the unfamiliar word in her mouth. “Is that what’s so important?”
Rory’s face blanched. She’d struck a nerve. Finally. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Don’t mention that word to anyone. Do you hear me? Don’t mention that word to anyone.”
“Alright, alright!” Eden said, throwing her hands up in surrender. There was a wild look in his eyes that she wouldn’t have tolerated in anyone else. “I’m sorry, Rory. I didn’t know.”
Rory sighed and put his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes hard. “No, I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. I need to get out of this office.”
Rory paused beside her at the Garden gate, taking in the scene for a moment, the way he always did when they visited his favorite part of the city. Eden watched him as he watched the festival, pleased to see some color returning to his cheeks and the wild look in his eyes gone as quickly as it had set in. His face was worn, and he looked older somehow, as if the last week had aged him years instead. Whatever it was that he was working on–whatever it was that he wouldn’t tell her–it was chipping away at him. He was keeping secrets and she itched to shake them out of him, but the last thing she wanted was to risk knocking loose one of her own.
The Garden was the biggest attraction in the city on a good day; on festival days, it was crowded and loud with hundreds of voices. People moved from one end of the lawn to the other and back, moving from booth to booth, game to game, laughing and crying in equal turns. A few Cards patrolled the outer perimeter, their hands always lingering near their lasers. Eden was glad to not see Hal or the rest of his squad, but she kept her eyes open. He had a knack for showing up when she least needed to see him, and the last thing she wanted was to have a repeat of their last conversation in front of Rory.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
On the far side of the Garden, past the fountain and the handball courts, a ferris wheel had been temporarily set up, along with a smaller spinning ride for children. Every minute it seemed like another bell or whistle sounded, cheering on another winner who had successfully thrown a ball through a hoop or landed their dart in the center of the target.
“We should wait on the games so that we don’t have to lug your winnings around all afternoon,” Rory said. “We made that mistake last year.”
“Food first then?” Eden asked, grinning at the memory. “Since you’ve come unprepared.”
“Me?” he asked with faux shock. “Unprepared? Preposterous.”
“Last year, you said you were going to bring a wagon for my trophies,” she reminded him. “And here you are, no wagon to be seen.”
Rory laughed, perhaps the first genuine laugh she’d heard from him all week. Certainly since he’d returned from Paradise a day earlier than expected. Eden grinned at him. Maybe Cardinal Enterprises hadn’t shut him down entirely, hadn’t quite managed to crush the soul out of him. There was hope.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“Let’s start with a smoothie?” Rory suggested.
Although Rory was a head taller than her, it was Eden who led the way through the throng of people towards the food carts. Each was Cardinal Enterprises branded; where once there would have been a ring of brightly colored family owned carts, there was only a row of coldly corporate silver and red carts, each providing something slightly different from the same source. Silas and Elena Cooper had run a cart for many years, back when Eden was a small child and they had still had their plot of land. They didn’t even attend the festival these days.
“What flavor do you want?”
Eden jumped at the sound of Rory’s voice and smiled when he laughed. They got a couple of smoothies and overly large sugared pastry to share, which they enjoyed seated on the rim of the fountain, watching Haven pass them by. Eden closed her eyes and tried to savor it, every sound, every flavor, every scrap of joy.
“So I heard something interesting at work yesterday,” Rory started slowly, not meeting Eden’s eyes.
“Oh, really?” Eden felt herself tense but she willed her muscles to relax. She wondered for a second if Rory would bring up Paradisium, whatever it was, and somehow explain his strange reaction to it.
“It was about you, actually.”
“This should be good,” she said with an eye roll, trying to hide her disappointment. It had been ridiculous to think that he would explain now in public what he had refused to discuss in private. “What was it?”
“Did Mara really offer you a job, Eden?”
Eden’s stomach dropped and she looked down at her feet, dragging in the green grass around the fountain. The only thing more ridiculous than thinking he would discuss his own work was thinking that the news about her own career wouldn’t reach him. Clearly, Mara’s word was worth nothing, and there were no secrets between them.
Rory let the silence linger, waiting a beat too long, but when Eden had nothing to offer, he went on. “Why didn’t you take it? Why didn’t you tell me?”
The hurt in his voice was subtle, but Eden couldn’t help bristling. “You don’t tell me much these days either, you know.”
Rory blinked in surprise. “That’s not fair. My security clearance--”
“Yeah. I know,” she said before he could finish his script. “You can’t. I get it.”
Rory eyed her suspiciously for a moment; she knew him well enough to know that he was weighing his options and deciding which hurt he wanted to pursue.
“How come you didn’t take the job?” he asked, taking the safe option.
“Are you kidding?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound relieved that he didn’t want to hash out their new penchant for keeping secrets from each other. “Me? One of them? After everything Hal and his squad have done to me and the rest of the people they think are beneath them? They’re awful, Rory. I won’t be a part of that. It’s bad enough I’m a part of it at all.”
“You could change things from the inside out, maybe,” he said. He lowered his voice, although none of the families or couples walking past them bothered to stop to listen. “Things have been getting scary, with the kidnappings and everything. And it’s only getting worse. You heard about Alex Jepsen, right?”
Eden nodded, taking a long drink from her smoothie. The brain freeze was worth it, the pain less intense than one more person trying to make her feel responsible for something that had nothing to do with her.
“And that transport two weeks ago? The one that got hijacked?”
“You want me in the middle of all of this? Gee, thanks,” she said, trying to hide the real hurt beneath her sarcasm.
“No!” Rory gasped. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying, if anyone could make a difference, it’s you. Eden, you’re the best of them and you know it. Four time laser champ?”
“Five time,” she corrected him. “Once as a middle schooler.”
He nodded. “You were the laser sharp shooting champ five years in a row, Eden. You could have gone to Globals–”
“But I had to go to work instead, because Cardinal Enterprises put my parents out of business,” she snapped. “I can get over working for them, Rory, because the salary is good, and I get to call the shots in the kitchen. It’s another thing entirely to fight for them, to put myself in danger when the Hive wouldn’t even be a thing if it wasn’t for Cardinal Enterprises!”
“You’re right,” Rory said, a bit too quickly. “I’m sorry.”
She raised an eyebrow at him, waiting. Rory hung his head.
“You’re right,” he said again, more solemnly. “I understand why you didn’t take the job. It seemed like a really exciting opportunity and I didn’t think past that.”
“It’s not my job to bring morality and competency to the Cards, Rory.”
“It’s not your job to bring morality and competency to the Cards,” he repeated.
“Thanks, Rory.”
“I’m sorry I pushed on it.”
“It’s okay,” she said. She took a deep breath. “I get it. I know I’ve been asking you a lot of questions you can’t answer lately.”
“I hate that I can’t share my work with you anymore. It’s really killing me, you know.”
Eden laughed a bit hollowly. “I probably wouldn’t understand it, anyways. It’s fine. Really. I’m sorry I’ve given you such a hard time about it.”
He smiled at her. “Are we good?”
“Always,” she promised.
They stayed at the festival until the sun began sinking and sunset colors had washed through the glass of the dome and set the Garden ablaze. The noise had started to die down as people trickled homeward, clutching full bellies and new knickknacks; Eden herself had earned three new plush toys as trophies from the game pavilions and only stopped playing at Rory’s pleading. As they wandered back towards the food carts for another round of dessert, Rory’s phone began chirping in his pocket; they both jumped at the noise and Eden almost dropped her winnings. He swore softly as he read the screen.
“Bad news?”
“No, I just... I’ve got to get back to the lab.”
“This late? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing! Nothing’s wrong, I’ve just got to go!” Rory scrambled to his feet. “Are you coming?”
“To your secret emergency? Am I invited?” she asked.
Rory grimaced. “I mean, back to campus. I don’t think you should walk back alone at night.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, more sharply than she intended.
“Eden--”
“Really!” she said. “You’d better get going.”
He frowned but, to Eden’s great surprise, he finally turned and disappeared through the gate. Eden lingered by the fountain, where they usually sat together, and tried to pretend for the better part of a half hour that she was not suddenly desperately lonely. The stuffed toys in her arms did little to mitigate it. It wasn’t a long walk back to campus; in fact, Eden could see the sharp corners of the building rising above the tops of the trees that surrounded the Garden. It was never far away, and she could never truly escape the shadow. In her reverie, Eden paid little attention to the thinning of the crowd or the darkening of the sky.
“You should be going, ma’am.”
The voice was unfamiliar and, when Eden looked up to see who it belonged to, she found the face unfamiliar as well. He was tall and couldn’t have been much older than Eden. The stubble on his face was thick and dark and his almost black eyes were shadowed by heavy brows and underlined by a chaos of freckles. The man was dressed in the uniform of a Card, but he seemed uncomfortable in it. As he regarded Eden, he fiddled with the sleeve of his jacket; it was a bit too short.
“Your jacket doesn’t fit,” she pointed out.
Although his lip twitched upward, the man immediately stopped fiddling with his sleeve. He crossed his arms behind his back and winked at Eden.
“You’ve got a sharp eye,” he said.
“Are you new? You seem awfully friendly for a Card.”
The man chuckled, a warm sound that Eden immediately enjoyed. She couldn’t help but answer it with a grin, and she pushed herself up from her seat on the rim of the fountain. The man waited as she gathered up her plush trophies.
“There’s no need for this,” she said. “I’m not going far.”
He shook his head sternly. “I’m afraid I must insist. Don’t worry. I don’t bite.”
Eden forced a small chuckle. There were only a few stragglers still making their way out of the Garden, and a few other Cards were escorting the patrons out. None of the Cards, some of whom Eden recognized, gave her or the man a second glance. Eden squared her shoulders and tried to release some of the tension. A wave of exhaustion swept through her and, although she would have much rather walked back to campus alone and taken her chances, she was much too tired to argue with this admittedly handsome but pushy stranger.
The Card fell into step behind Eden and they left the Garden. Campus was gleaming not far from them, catching the dying sunlight refracting through the dome. The streets were quiet, and the silence was humming in her ears.
“What’s your name?” she asked, when she couldn’t walk in silence any longer.
He jumped, as if her sudden question had reminded him of her presence. “Lucas,” he said. He didn't return the question.
“I haven’t seen you around before.”
She slowed her pace and let him catch up with her. He seemed uncomfortable at their sudden closeness. She peered up at him in the dim lamplight. He was tall, unreasonably so. A full head taller than Rory, she judged. The weapon at his side was scuffed and scratched, the metal handle dull and lifeless instead of gleaming. Eden guessed he was already on Mara’s bad side.
“You think you’d remember me?” he said, looking down at her with a lazy smile.
Eden snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
Lucas stopped, although they were in the half lit twilight between street lamps, and for some reason, Eden stopped too. There was no one else around. The Cardinal Enterprises campus wasn’t far now, but the lights warmly glowing from the windows had never been enticing to Eden. He took a small step towards her, one hand resting not so casually on the weapon at his side, and her heart started racing. She took a small step back. His hand hovered over the weapon at his side and his lazy smile did not reach his eyes. There was something unsettling about Lucas and the way he held himself.
“Would you say you’re good friends with Dr. Lawrence?”
“Why?”
“You two seemed close at the Garden.”
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and Eden took another small step back. If she ran, could she outpace him? Probably. The dull glint of the weapon at his side stopped her. She was fast, but not that fast. If she pushed him back, though. Hard. He wouldn’t be expecting it, would he?
In the heartbeat that these thoughts raced through Eden’s mind, Lucas smiled, flashing a set of ice white teeth. A distraction. Eden glanced down in time to see his hand tighten around his weapon and bring it up. She pushed him hard, throwing all of her weight into him, and he stumbled backwards, surprised. Eden turned and began beating her feet against the pavement, running towards campus as fast as she could but it wasn’t enough. Something hard hit the back of her head, and everything went dark.