Rory straddled the line between a brisk walk and an all-out run the entire route from the Garden to Cardinal Enterprises Main Campus. Thankfully, it wasn’t a long walk, but he arrived at the front steps, panting and slicked with sweat, only ten minutes after leaving the Garden, about half the time it usually took him. He adjusted his sleeves and his tie at the bottom of the steps, trying to catch his breath before he gained any more unwelcome attention. Even the embarrassment of the colleagues who were giving his disheveled self such a wide berth as they ascended up to campus was not enough to stop the worm of guilt from burrowing deeper into his brain. He’d left Eden alone and it was getting dark, slowly but surely.
Rory couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t seen the expression on her face when he’d called a short goodbye to her as he turned and raced back to campus. The sun was setting but Rory tried to push the doubts from his mind as he started up the steps to the gleaming doors of campus. Eden was strong, stronger than him by far. If there would have been trouble on the way back to campus–whether it be from the Hive or the Cards who were supposed to be protecting Cardinal Enterprises from their more and more frequent attacks–it would have been Eden who would have gotten them out of it, he told himself. The thought didn’t quite stick as he called for the elevator.
Conference room A was on the second floor, just around the corner from the elevator, so Rory did not have much time to steel himself. He knocked twice, softly, and pushed through to the conference room door. He found a long table populated by a handful of colleagues who Rory assumed was the rest of the team. Sabrina Harper was sitting beside an empty chair, which she had balanced her briefcase on. She looked up when he entered and smiled, nodding to the chair beside her. SRory recognized the others, having met them in some capacity or another during his career, but the only two in the room that he truly felt he knew were Sabrina Harper and Alan Whitmore. While Dr. Woods and Dr. Hardy barely acknowledged Rory’s entrance, Sabrina swept her briefcase to the floor and Rory needed no other invitation. He gave a nod to Whitmore across the table as he accepted the invitation, feeling two kinds of nervousness now.
“Do you know what this is about?” Rory asked, fidgeting in the seat beside Sabrina. He nodded hello to the other three members of the team, but only Dr. Whitmore returned the gesture.
“Hello to you too,” Sabrina said grinning. “No, I don’t. Any ideas?”
“Hello,” Rory said, his cheeks warming. “I’ve got no idea either.”
Sabrina nudged him. They shared a secret, but the thought brought the wrong kind of nervousness. The butterflies in Rory’s stomach had teeth and, although he knew as well as Sabrina what this meeting was likely about, he prayed he was wrong.
Abrahams was absent from the room; Rory supposed he wanted to make an entrance. He shot a glance at the clock on the wall; it was getting late. He’d be lucky to get any sleep at all. Furrowing his brow, he pulled his phone out of his pocket. No messages. He quickly typed out a message to Eden: Home safe. She might still be upset with him, but he wouldn’t sleep anyways until he knew she’d made it home safe. He shoved his phone back into his pocket as Dr. Abrahams abruptly entered the room and let his briefcase land loudly on the table.
“Good evening, esteemed colleagues,” he said. Dr. Abrahams’ face was no longer twisted into a sour expression. He seemed downright cheerful.
Around the table, the team murmured their hellos after an awkward pause in which Abrahams failed to introduce them. Rory recognized most of the handful of people who would be working alongside him on the team. Dr. Arnold Hardy, renowned demolitions expert, who had been mainly consulting since the closure of Haven’s mines. Dr. Tara Woods, who’s vehicle and machinery designs were favored both by Cardinal Enterprises and the city. To Rory’s knowledge, she consulted for both.
“Thank you all for meeting me here tonight at such especially short notice. Before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge having the whole team together for the first time since Dr, Lawrence’s induction. This will happen rarely, as you all have your own assignments and research to complete, which may not overlap much with your colleagues. Nonetheless, it’s good to see everyone gathered together.
An exciting announcement first, after which you’ll all have new assignments for my last project. These new tasks will take precedence over everything. I mean everything.”
Dr. Abrahams paused here and popped open his briefcase. Rory couldn’t see around it, but a familiar pink glow blossomed and filled the room and his stomach dropped. Dr. Abrahams pulled out a glass container from his briefcase and held it up to the awe of the room. Dr. Hardy, Dr. Whitmore, and Dr. Woods were seeing the mineral for the first time, judging by their expressions. Even Rory, prepared by his first encounter with it, was awestruck again.
“Behold!” Abrahams said dramatically, hefting a palm-sized crystal up to the light. “Paradisium. A miracle element which will lead Haven into the future!”
Amid the confused murmurs of Drs. Hardy and Woods, and Sabrina’s impulsive cheer, Dr. Abrahams silenced them with his familiar sour look. Hardy, Woods, and Sabrina lapsed into silence alongside Rory and Whitmore. When he had their full attention, Abrahams cleared his throat and gave the two who had not attended the conference a short explanation of the properties of Paradisium, conspicuously leaving out any mention of how he had acquired it.
Rory tore his eyes away to see if Sabrina’s face was a mirror of his own but he saw only excitement on her face, without a trace of the apprehension that had poisoned Rory.
T“This element opens up a world of possibilities, and today, we step into the future.”
With a grand gesture, Abrahams turned on the projector he had set up on the table, and an image of a satellite overwhelmed the blank wall behind them.
“Tyche,” Abrahams said reverently. “No longer a dream. With Paradisium fueling her, she’ll orbit Mars for a lifetime. Longer! Until this planet is a husk.”
Rory’s stomach dropped. It was worse than he thought.
The Mars Treaty, the agreement that had bound humanity since they landed on the red planet, restricted very few things. It’s primary objective had always been to preserve the peace between the cities, knowing the deep scars that war had left on the planet they’d left behind. The Mars Treaty forbade the construction of weapons above a certain grade–Rory was always forgetting the specifics, but Eden would know–and city-owned spacecraft. The only man-made structures in the sky were overseen by the capital, and there had never even been whispers, as far as Rory knew, about going against the treaty. Independently owned crafts were too much of a risk, when the past was rife with examples of humans raining fire down on other humans. That would never happen on Mars, the founders had decided. No city had need of their own satellites, rockets, or ships. Not when the past was smeared in blood.
“So the restrictions have been lifted then?” It was
Dr. Hardy who was the first to break the silence. He arched one graying eyebrow and, in answer, Abrahams’ brow darkened immediately, the good humor gone. Dr. Hardy was unmoving under his intimidation—Rory vowed to study his tactics if it paid off—and waited for the answer. Rory found himself leaning forward, holding his breath as he waited. Dr. Abrahams knew as well as any of them that launching any kind of spacecraft would be considered an act of aggression by their sister cities. There was no war on Mars, and there never would be. Not if the laws of the Mars Treaty were followed. After a beat of hesitation that lasted too long, Abrahams answered, his mouth tight and his voice clipped.
“The restrictions have not been lifted. Its time to admit that t. The treaty forbids any city to own and operate their own spacecrafts. That is true. But Cardinal Enterprises is a separate entity and entered into no such agreement. The Tyche will not be the property of Haven. It will be ours. Mine.”
The room was silent. Rory could not tell if the expression on Sabrina’s face was horror or excitement. She was holding her breath, her eyes wide and fixed to the image of the Tyche. Dr. Woods, as well, was eyeing the schematics almost hungrily. It was, Rory had to admit, truly cutting edge. Illegally cutting edge. It was hard to judge Dr. Whitmore’s typical stoic expression, and Rory didn’t want to speculate on Sabrina. He kept his eyes forward.
“And what is the objective of the Tyche?” Dr. Woods asked, her soft voice abnormally loud in the quiet room.
Dr. Abrahams seemed perturbed by the questions from his underlings. Maybe he had expected them to be more exuberant. Rory was a bit relieved by the lack of celebration, but he couldn’t dislodge the nervous feeling in his gut that the Special Forces task force was going to go along with this.
“The Tyche will simply monitor the crop dome for quality assurance,” Dr. Abrahams said. He paused. “As well as scan the main dome for the Hive, and anyone else who might benefit from a watchful eye. It’s time we stamped the troublemakers out once and for all, instead of letting the problem fester like the fathers of our founders. The Paradisium will give us the power needed to build and launch this craft without arousing the suspicion of the city by drawing from the grid. And it will last a lifetime, without any interference from the ground. Once she’s in the air, she’s unstoppable.”
“Sir,” Rory said, trying hard to keep his voice steady as every eye turned to him. He chose his next words carefully and tried to keep his voice from shaking. He was too afraid to confront the greater picture of the Mars Treaty, so instead, he grasped at a lower hanging fruit. “How much Paradisium has our sister city agreed to give us?”
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With an angry flick of his wrist, Abrahams turned off the projector and began gathering up his belongings into his briefcase. He glowered at Rory for a second. “Enough. We have more than enough. Your individual assignments will be sent to your tablets in the morning. We’ll meet again soon to touch bases. I trust you all know enough to keep this project confidential. It’s in your best interest.”
Abrahams left them in stunned silence, and Hardy and Woods were quick to follow him out. Whitmore made to follow them, but Rory caught his sleeve. Whitmore paused. He and Sabrina were the only ones who lingered.
“What do you think?” Rory whispered.
Whitmore sighed. “What I think has long since ceased to be of significance. Enjoy this for what it can be and trust in Abrahams. If he says this will be okay, it will be.”
“Enjoy this?” Rory sputtered.
“Yes!” Sabrina said. She stood and brushed nothing from the front of her skirt. “Enjoy this for the cutting edge science that this is, Rory! This is happening, with or without us. We might as well be part of it and have our names last as long as the Tyche.”
“Last forever and mean nothing?” Rory asked.
Sabrina recoiled, just enough to make Rory feel bad, but his apologies did nothing to keep her from grabbing her briefcase and fleeing. Whitmore clucked at Rory sadly, and it infuriated Rory that his mentor disapproved more of his failure with Sabrina than with Abrahams’ moral failure. He stood and bid Whitmore a clipped goodnight.
When he returned to his office and his solitude, he could not settle. He checked his phone again. Eden hadn’t responded yet. It was late, and sleep was calling to him, but he couldn’t help but worry. She’d been mad but this mad? He typed up another message as he passed through the side door of his office into the tiny bedroom that scientists were expected to be content with. It was little more than a bed and closet, but the bed was quite comfortable. If she didn’t respond soon, he’d go to her dorm himself, he decided. She couldn’t hide from him. He kicked off his shoes and sent the message. Eden, I’m sorry about earlier. You make it back okay? I’m coming to check on you in twenty if you don’t respond. It was a bit more threatening than he was used to, but things with the Hive were only getting worse. She could have forgotten, and was likely sound asleep by now, he considered. He would check on her soon. If she didn’t respond. He laid down and set a timer for fifteen minutes.
After a dreamless slumber, Rory woke in a haze in the early morning and stumbled out the door of his quarters into his office. He checked his phone; Eden hadn’t answered him yet. He’d fallen asleep. He cursed; another failing. He tried to shake off the unsettled feeling he had. She wouldn’t have been this angry with him. Something was wrong. He had to find her.
He resolved to stop by the cafeteria before starting his day. Maybe she’d simply overslept and headed straight to work without checking her phone this morning. Unlikely, but possible. A pang of guilt took him as he got on the elevator and let it carry him down to the main floor.
As he stepped out of the elevator and weaved through the lobby, the ball of stress sitting in his chest near his heart began to tighten. As he passed through the unusually crowded lobby, the crowd became more dense as he neared the door of the cafeteria. The crowd was tense, and Rory’s stomach twisted as he pushed past the last few disgruntled people to the cafeteria door. Which was still locked. It was midmorning by now, well past opening time.
“For the last time,” an angry voice pierced the murmur of the crowd. “There will be no complimentary breakfast this morning. We apologize for the inconvenience. Whatever breakfast you choose today will be reimbursed by the company. Please, for the last time, disperse!”
Despite the grumbling crowd beginning to disperse, perhaps thanks to the raised ladle waving at them threateningly from the half open cafeteria door, Rory pushed his way upstream towards the origin of the voice.
“The kitchen is closed today,” the girl said, as Rory approached. Rory recognized her, though her name escaped him. Louisa, perhaps.
Eden was nowhere to be seen in the sliver of the kitchen he could see, which felt less warm and orderly even from here without her presence. It was chaos. Clearly, the two girls had tried to pull off breakfast by themselves, but hadn’t managed. When Eden heard about this, she would be furious with them. His stomach dropped. Where was she? He tried to keep his voice neutral.
“Is Eden around?” He knew the answer before it came.
The girl--Eloise, he suddenly remembered-- glared at him. There was pancake batter streaked in her hair. However, she did lower her ladle.
“She never showed up this morning, and no one’s heard from her.”
Eloise let the cafetoria door swing shut in his face. Rory didn’t linger. Instead, almost without meaning to, he was back in the elevator, this time destined for Eden’s door. While he waited for the elevator to let him out, he dialed her number on his phone. Immediately, it went to voicemail. He swore again, more often in one morning than the rest of the week combined. He found her room quickly and tried the door. Unlocked. It swung open for him.
Her room was a garden, every surface covered in artificial plants, with large silk blooms and feathery leaves. Native plants from the homeworld they would never see. The bed was perfectly made, corners sharp and the pillows placed in perfect parallel. He touched the bed cover, hoping somehow that it would be warm. He sank onto the floral cover, his skin cold and the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. She’d never been here.
Numb, he dialed a familiar number and fought his shaking hands to hold the phone steady.
Silas Cooper picked up on the second ring. “Rory! How are you, son?” His voice was as loud and boisterous as ever.
“Hi, Mr. Cooper. Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering. Is Eden with you?”
“With me? No, why do you ask?”
Rory could still hear the smile in Silas’ voice. He hated himself for the tremor in his own. “She didn’t show up for work this morning. No one has heard from her, not since last night. Not since the festival, actually. She hasn’t messaged me back since the festival. Have you heard from her at all?”
The truth was beginning to dawn on the other end of the line, much more quickly than it had over Rory. Rory heard it in the weight of the silence. Silas spoke slowly when he finally spoke.
“No,” he said. “Not since yesterday. No one’s heard from her? At all? Are you sure?”
“She hasn’t answered any of my messages; she didn’t answer when I called. She missed work, and she never does that. I’m in her room now. I don’t think she was here.”
“Are you telling me that my daughter is missing?”
Something shattered in Rory’s chest and the echo of that break was the sound of the Coopers, sobbing on the other end of the line. The line went dead and Rory was left, alone, in the empty room.
For minutes, or for hours, time passed Rory by, sitting broken on Eden’s bed. He dialed her number over and over again and held his phone to his ear until the ringing stopped, and Eden’s voice prompted him to leave a message. There would be no answer; he knew that. The only comfort was in her voice. He raised the phone to his ear one more time, although the voicemail had filled messages ago. When the call failed, interrupted by an incoming call, he dropped the phone in his haste to answer. It skittered under her bed, and he dove to retrieve it, the insistent vibrating nearly as loud as the pounding of his heart.
“Eden? Hello?” he gasped when he’d retrieved it. “Are you there?”
“Rory? Are you alright?”
It wasn’t her. Rory’s chest deflated. He wasn’t sure how he’d convinced himself so quickly that it would be her, but the voice on the other end broke him.
“Are you there?”
The voice, who he recognized too late as Sabrina, was taking on a concerned note of panic. In his disappointment, he’d forgotten to respond.
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Sorry. What can I do for you?”
“Have you checked your inbox? I just got my assignment from Dr. Abrahams and, Rory, it’s a monster. There’s so much code to get through. I don’t even really know what I’m looking at here.”
“No, I haven’t looked,” Rory said.
“Well,” Sabrina continued. “I was wondering if you wanted to get together to go over some of it? Unless you’re still upset about it all. It kind of sounds like you are. There’s nothing we can do to stop the Tyche, we might as well get on board, don’t you think? Or are you going to snap at me again?”
Rory sighed. It was too much. He waited for the anger and confusion and disappointment that he’d felt during the meeting in the conference room to sweep through him again but there was nothing left to spare. All of his insides were twisted over something far more important than the meager breaking of an interplanetary treaty.
“It’s not that,” Rory said. “I’m sorry, by the way, that I snapped at you. I was upset about the Tyche, but that’s not it.”
“Great!” Sabrina said. “I knew you’d come around–”
“I can’t help you tonight–”
“So you are still upset. Rory, we’re going to be stuck working together on this project, we can’t feud just because we had a tiny disagreement.”
“No, it’s not that,” Rory said, not quite shouting but not quietly either. “Eden is missing, okay?”
“Eden?”
“My best friend is missing,” Rory said, his voice cracking. “And I’m worried she was taken by the Hive.”
“Slow down,” Sabrina said. “Tell me what happened. When did this happen?”
“I have to go,” Rory said. He couldn’t sit still any longer, talking to Sabrina while Eden was out there, somewhere. Alone. Or worse. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Sabrina was still speaking when the line went dead. The room was too small, or maybe Rory’s skin was too tight. Either way, he would burst if he continued to sit. With nothing in his mind except her face, Rory left Eden’s room and campus behind. The night was dark and full of shadows; the streets were quiet and empty. Rory wasn’t sure what he was looking for, what kind of signs or clues would lead him to her. He wasn’t sure what he would do if he, without the resources and manpower of the Cards who had been hunting for years, found the Hive’s base and found Eden there. Or even if the Hive was responsible for her disappearance.
It had to have been the Hive, he thought. There had been another disappearance attributed to them earlier in the week, but Rory couldn’t remember the victim’s name as he roamed the streets of Haven. As far as he was concerned, there was only one disappearance that mattered, and he would search until his legs failed him.