Sometimes a good friend is the only thing standing between you and a yawning pit of inevitable doom. In Rath’s case, salvation arrived when Mary appeared like a petite missile flying across the tram car. After launching herself from her seat, despite Marco’s failed attempt at deescalation, the young woman planted both palms against Rathaniel’s chest and gave him a shove hard enough to push him into the wall behind him. The audible thud of his impact was an abject reminder that, regardless of her size, the toned and capable body of a laborer lurked beneath Mary’s rec whites.
“Are you out of your flickering mind?,” Mary hissed. As she spoke, her eyes narrowed like a viper preparing to sink its fangs into a rodent too stupid to realize the danger it was in. “A walking reprimand sways her hips and bats her eyes at you then suddenly you’re ready to tell her your life story?”
“Ouch,” Rathaniel replied, returning Mary’s accusatory look with an indignant scowl. Eyeing her warily, Rath began to defend himself by saying, “Would you calm dow…”
As it so happened, that was as far as Rath made it before Abigail stepped around Mary to take possession of his arm. Caught completely off guard, he sent an incredulous look toward the woman who’d pressed herself into his side. “You can call this ‘walking reprimand’ Abigail Summers. She is a virtuous woman of impeccable moral character and discerning taste.” The slack jawed, wide-eyed look Mary was giving his new acquaintance sent warning sirens howling through his mind.
“Now if you’ll excuse us,” Abigail said, after offering Mary a dismissive sniff. A heartbeat later Rathaniel was, once again, the target of her enchanting emerald eyes. “My handsome friend was unburdening himself after a really, really difficult day.”
Much to his disappointment, and chagrin, Rath’s mind blanked when Analyst Summers leaned into him once more. It wasn’t so much that Rath was unfamiliar with the more physical elements of feminine charm, but this level of contact between citizens was practically taboo. Mary hadn’t been exaggerating, at least not by much, with her ‘walking reprimand’ comment. Even the way Mary and Marco conducted themselves in public was generally frowned upon. That was considering they were a long-time couple applying for a cohabitation license. For him, to be the subject of such aggressive advances from a stranger was extremely uncomfortable. To a growing number of people watching the drama unfold, Rathaniel's discomfort was as intriguing as it was fascinating.
“Look, uh, Abigail. Its been a pretty rough day,” Rath began in, what he hoped, was a neutral tone. Mindful of the murderous stare written across Mary’s face, he tried to politely withdraw his arm from its, entirely too comfortable, position against Abigail’s chest. “I appreciate your concern. I wouldn't mind the chance to get to know you,” he continued, tugging more insistently at his captured arm when Mary growled like a feral cat, “But today isn’t the best day for it.”
Undeterred, Abigail’s grip became tighter while Rath grew more forceful with his rejection. What’s more, she seemed serene in the face of his mild refusal. While Rathaniel tried to liberate his arm, a captivating smile blossomed upon her luscious lips.
“No such thing as a bad day to make a new friend, is there?” Rath found himself wondering if anyone had ever had the audacity to deny the beautiful woman what she wanted.
That was when Mary punched him. Or would have, if Marco hadn’t inserted himself between the furious laborer and her target. With the grace of a dance instructor, the powerfully muscled man flowed from his seat to capture Mary’s tiny fist like a tidal wave capsizing a rowboat. Another wordless growl rattled its way past Mary’s lips as her free hand rose to express her displeasure with Rathaniel in more physical terms. Marco, once again, interceded as if he’d been expecting her to do exactly that. Still moving with a speed that belied his size, he once again plucked her swinging fist from the air. Both her hands now captured, Marco twirled the young woman as if they were spending their rec day in a dance hall. The petite laborer's spin, sent the dark ringlets of her hair flying until she came to a stop with her back to Marco’s chest. Despite Mary's growl of protest, his arms wrapped around her in a snug binding of well muscled flesh.
“Are you finished giving everyone in the car something to talk about? Could we sit down and continue whatever this is with a bit more privacy?” Marco’s sapphire eyes swept from Rath to Abigail and then back again. While he spoke, Marco refused to dignify Mary's struggles with a response. Rath had to admire the way his friend could pretend not to notice the stream of profanity whispering from her lips. Her choice of language was colorful enough to draw a blush from the oldest miners he'd ever met..
“No reason to stand while we can sit, Rathaniel,” Abigail said in a magnanimous tone. The analyst tossed a brilliant smile Mary’s way as she sashayed past the other woman. For his part, Rath was equal parts annoyed and amused when she finally released his arm to sink into a nearby seat. After a heartbeat of consideration, Rath offered Mary a sheepish smile as he moved to sit beside his new friend. The look he received in return made him wince. He would be hearing about this later.
“Alright then,” Marco rumbled, releasing Mary who immediately turned to give him the same narrow eyed look she’d leveled at Rathaniel. If the big man noticed, it didn’t show in his nonplussed body language.
“My name is Marco Fennel and this is Mary Devereaux,” he continued, illustrating his words by taking hold of Mary’s hand. “The three of us are all labor castes living in building four,” Marco said, leading Mary to the last spot by the window before taking the seat beside her. To her credit, the dark haired woman only briefly resisted the way he tugged her down into the seat beside him.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance. I’m sure we can all be fabulous friends,” Abigail said, her sultry soprano sounding scandalously sinful.
After finally releasing Rath’s arm, the woman in green coveralls let her faceted emerald eyes drift across the three laborers. Her cool, assessing gaze scrutinized Marco before turning her eyes toward the petulant Mary. “I know I’ve been rather forward, but I’m very interested to know what happened at that shuffle earlier today. Who was the man taken into custody? Was it because of a reprimand? Or was it something else?” By the time she’d run out of questions her inquisitive look had meandered its way back to where Rathaniel sat at her side.
Feeling the combined weight of everyone's attention, Rath was slow to answer. His lips pursed into a thin line while he took a moment to glance across the car to see if they were still being watched. Most of their spectators had turned their attention to other entertainment by now. The mirrored mask worn by the Peace Keeper at the far end of the car made it impossible to know if they were interested in the impromptu meeting taking place.
In the interest of caution, Rathaniel pitched his voice low so his words only carried to the ears within the booth they shared. When he spoke, slow and methodical, his words sounded like the grinding of a millstone.
For the second time that day, Rathaniel retold the events of his shuffle. This time his voice was steady and filled with a sense of purpose whereas before it had only relayed the shock of his unexpected loss. Like a student watching their favorite teacher, Abigail listened attentively, only interrupting to ask an occasional question for the sake of clarity. Marco and Mary remained silent throughout, both of them having arrived at a sort of grim acceptance of the situation.
Twice the tram slowed to a halt, allowing some of the travelers the chance to disembark. After a few bustling moments of activity, others waiting at the terminal took their place.
Rath focused on his story, all but ignoring the comings and goings of the other citizens around him. He lost track of them all except for one specific citizen. The Peace Keeper never so much as flinched from his perch at the far end of the car.
“So do you know where this Ovid fellow might be? Any ideas at all?” Abigail asked, her head tilted to the side while she nibbled on her lower lip.
“No idea.” It was Mary that replied, perhaps sensing that Rath would appreciate a break from guiding the conversation. “Marco and I haven’t seen him in at least a couple mensis. I didn’t think about it at the time, but after hearing what Jared said, I can look back and see the way he began to drift away from us. All of us.” As she continued, Mary’s eyes took on a distant cast and a self-deprecating smile twisted the corners of her lips. “There’s never enough time, is there? It's easy to lose track of things when there’s always the work, or the shuffle, or the…” Her voice trailing off, Mary looked toward Marco for support.
“I don’t know what Ovid got into,” the blonde laborer murmured, one of his big hands moving to cover one of Mary’s with a comforting squeeze. “I do remember the last time I saw him. He lives on the same floor we do and I caught him outside his apartment one day. Ovie is normally a talker, so I thought it was odd, even then, that he was in such a rush to get into his apartment. He had a stack of books in his hands that he kept trying to juggle around so I opened the door for him. When I asked what they were about, he said they were engineering books that he got to help Ratty with a project.”
Rathaniel gave a start at hearing his nickname. He spoke with his dark eyebrows knitting together in confusion, “I don’t know what he was talking about, Marco. You know I do a little bit of electrical crafting, but nothing more than lighting repair or working on simple motors. I’m no analyst. I don’t do engineering.”
Abigail smoothly leaned into him then, placing an open palm on his thigh. Her head tilted up and her lips grew close enough to his neck that he could feel her breath against his skin when she spoke. “There are all sorts of things I can teach you,” the analyst murmured.
Stolen novel; please report.
Heedless of the byplay across the booth, and of Mary’s barely contained outrage, Marco continued in his gruff voice. “I should have asked about it earlier, but I guess I’m as guilty of being distracted as everyone else.” Marco then cast an idle glance over his shoulder at the crowded car behind them before he shifted forward in his seat. Dropping his voice so low that the other three had to lean in to hear him, Marco continued in a whisper. “The weirdest thing is that I know one of those books had something about ONI on it.”
Abigail sucked in a breath and jerked back in her seat as if Marco’s words had scalded her. “Not possible. Or, well, not legally possible. There are no books written on the ONI system and it's impossible to get a license to write about it. Its restricted tech and the analysts that work on them never get shuffled to a different job.”
“Maybe they knew that he was reading unlicensed research on the ONI?,” Mary offered , her deep brown eyes darting from Rathaniel to Marco. “If they were afraid he’d told someone about what he was working on, that could explain why they were so quick to take an associate of his into custody.”
Abigail furrowed her eyebrows as she turned toward Mary. After a moment’s pause with her lips pursed, the analyst finally spoke in a voice that, for the first time, lacked conviction. “That isn’t how things work. Citizens of Nox are accountable for their own actions and only their own actions. What you’re describing would be some kind of investigation. Something like that would have to come all the way down from the Eternal Council.”
“The other analysts,” Rathaniel began, his voice pitched toward his nearby friends but his eyes focused on the other end of the car. He continued after a short beat, though his eyes never left the masked Peace Keeper, “The ones that you said work on the ONI. If they don’t shuffle then someone besides administrators issue their work details. Who is in charge of that?”
“The Eternal Council,” Mary growled, looking toward Abigail as if daring her to deny it. The analyst's only response was a shake of her head and an agitated sweep of splayed fingers through her wavy auburn hair. Accepting that as an admission, Mary continued in a voice so caustic you could imagine her words dripping acid. “They’re the ones that took Jer. They thought Ovie learned something or did something and told him about it.” Mary’s balled fist struck her own thigh hard enough to elicit a dull crack.
In the back of his mind, Rathaniel knew that his fixation on the Peace Keeper was neither smart nor reasonable. After the day he’d had, doing anything to attract the attention of the law enforcement caste was an absolute mistake. To garner that attention by engaging in a staring contest with a Keeper was the height of absurdity. And yet, he couldn’t help himself. Like a moth fluttering toward the warm glow of dancing candlelight, his hazel eyes kept returning to the Keeper while his mind churned with their newfound revelations. What if it was the Eternal Council? Some of the earliest classes at the Dormitories were about the history of the Imperium. Everyone knew the council of five led the pilgrimage to Magna Spelunca. They had, literally, laid the first stones. Planted the first crops. Ignited the first lanterns. And, most importantly, found a way to refine glimmerkriss lattice into the organic nanites that helped sustain each and every person who called Nox home. Their collective word was law of the highest order because their dedication to Nox and its citizens was above refute. Stewardship of Nox was the entire purpose of their immortal existence.
If his friends were right, and Mary seemed to think they were, what did that mean? Was Ovie, somehow, an existential threat to the city? Were he and Jared actually co-conspirators intent on bringing down their way of life? He couldn’t imagine it. But what was the alternative then? If the Eternal Council wasn’t justified in persecuting his friends, were there others who’d suffered the same? What had happened to them?
Rathaniel wasn’t the only one lost in his own thoughts. A silence as heavy as any stone he’d ever lifted settled over the booth he and his friends had claimed. Wrapped snugly in a blanket of contemplative quiet, Rath was barely aware of the muted roar of conversation all around them.
Further away from the city center, and deeper into the darkness that lay undisturbed by the Helios towers, the laborers and analysts on the tram began to relax and feel more at home. You would find no red Blankets out on the edges of Nox,. Out here the only thing holding the darkness at bay were the street lamps and the pale glow leaking from the buildings rising so high that they vanished into the darkness above. The fringes, close to the wall separating the city from the wilds of the cavern, lay the part of the city that the lower castes called home.
“The building three terminal the next stop,” Abigail said in a subdued tone. A heartbeat later, she had the attention of three emotionally drained laborers. The analyst let her green eyes drift from one face to the next before finally settling on Rath. “Which mine shaft did you say you got shuffled into?” Her voice was soft and casual, like the soft, casual way she trailed the tip of her index finger against the zipper of his coveralls.
“Oh, uh,” Rathaniel stumbled, torn between looking into her twinkling emerald eyes and watching her long fingers tug at the zipper. After the third time his lips opened and closed with no words emerging from them, the sound of Mary clearing her throat as obnoxiously as possible helped him focus enough to deliver an answer. “
It was sector C, shaft 48,” Rath finally muttered, one of his hands swatting at her wandering hand the same way he might try to ward away an irritating fly.
There was a pause after he spoke, as if she were playing his words back in her head to reassure herself that she’d heard him right. A heartbeat later, her face lit up like a Helios tower. Vibrating with excitement, her luscious lips parted to display a toothy grin. “I’m in shaft 48 too! We can take the tram together in the morning. Get off at building three and I’ll find you at the terminal. Unless, “ she continued, walking her fingers across the front of his coveralls despite his attempt at batting her fingers to the side.. Her head tipped forward to look up at him through her long lashes, “You want to save yourself the hassle and stay with me tonight?”
“Oh for the love of everything Bright!,” Mary erupted, throwing her hands in the air before leaning across the booth to remove Abigail’s hand from Rathaniel's chest. “Just go already. You can’t even imagine how much trouble you’ve gotten Ratty into.” Abigail gamely tried to return her hand to where it had been only for Mary to swat it away once more. “And another thing! Don’t wait tomorrow morning unless you want to be late. He’s not allowed to spend time with strange, shameless, analysts!” With each word, Mary grew more animated until she sneered the last words in Abigail’s direction.
The auburn haired woman tipped her head back and made no attempt to stifle the giggles that erupted from her lips. While Mary fumed, Abigail offered Marco a playful wink. “It was a pleasure to meet both of you. I hope next time we can have a longer talk somewhere more comfortable than the tram.” The tall woman rose to her feet, arms lifting above her head in a sensuous stretch that accentuated the voluptuous curves beneath the polysynth uniform she wore.
“And as for you, “ she purred, looking over her shoulder at the spellbound Rathaniel, “I’ll see you in the morning, Ratty.”
“That’s not his name!,” Mary huffed at the departing woman. The three laborers could hear Abigail’s laughter as she made her way down the aisle toward the now open door. Moments later, the new friend that had crashed into their lives vanished into the crowd exiting the tram.
“And you!,” Mary said, “When I said you’re not allowed, I meant it! You. Are. Not. Allowed. Ratty.” Each word was painstakingly enunciated with a pause between each one to convey the appropriate gravity of her proclamation.
“Now Mary, “ Marco said, the quiet man finally taking the helm in the conversation again. “Rath is a grown man.” Mary turned to him with a betrayed look that became indignant rage. The blonde laborer hurried on before she could interrupt. “Besides, we’ve got more important things to worry about, right? Like it or not, we learned some important things from Abigail tonight and we need to focus on that. We need to meet up with Krista and anyone else who happens to be around.”
Mary’s arms crossed her chest in a sulky pose that made her into the very image of a petulant child. Unfortunately for her, long cycles of exposure to Mary’s antics had immunized Rath to her particular brand of insanity. Besides that, Marco was absolutely correct. They had more important things to devote their energy to than Abigail or Mary’s opinion of her.
“Do you think the Eternal Council put our friends in custody?,” Rath’s voice had a hollow ring to it as the doors closed and the tram began to accelerate again. “They're supposed to be good people. The best people. Why would they want to do that to a good man like Jared?"
Marco tilted his head, weighing Rathaniel’s words with the careful consideration they were due. Still mulling over an answer, the big man lifted an arm to drape over Mary’s shoulder. As if by reflex, when the young woman nestled quietly against his side, her spiteful wrath soothed by his contact.
When Marco finally spoke, it was the simple, direct sort of answer his friends had come to expect from him. “Yes, Rath. They might be the ones responsible and we need to accept that it might have been justified.”
Rath flinched from his words as if Marco had leaned across the booth and slapped him. “I know. I keep thinking that Jer didn’t tell me anything. I have to think that if Ovie had shared something Jared would have told me about it.” Even to himself the words rang hollow. Rath knew, they all knew, that the last thing Jared would do was share knowledge that could put his friends in danger. “But what could Ovie have known? What could he have done that was so bad the flickering Eternal Council got involved?”
“It doesn’t matter, Ratty,” Mary said, her voice sounding small and unsure as she curled up against Marco’s broad chest. “We’ve got to get them back. That’s all that matters.”
“She’s right,” Marco rumbled, “And I’m sure the others will feel the same way. Whatever secrets Jared may have kept were important for him to protect. Ovie must have had a reason to learn or do whatever it is that put him on the Council’s watch list. Right now, the only choice we have is to trust our friends.”
Rath remained silent despite the pulse of guilt urging him to agree with Marco’s assessment. But the lingering skepticism he felt couldn’t be quelled so easily. How long had it been since any of them had seen Ovid? Who knew what he could have been up to during that time. Marco himself had witnessed their friend in the possession of unlicensed literature. The difference between him and his friend was that, to them, it didn't matter what Ovid had been up to.
“Get up, stalagmite,” Mary said in a sing-song voice before her boot lashed out to kick him in the shin. Both she and Marco ignored Rath’s sharp, indrawn breath as they rose to their feet in a series of stretches that were far less sensual than Abigail’s had been. “C’mon, Ratty. You’ve been so bad today that I have to personally escort you to Krista.”
“First we have to stop in the lobby for a nutricube,” Marco pragmatically reminded her before he began making his way toward the door.
“Awww….,” Mary whined, following her paramour after making certain that Rath was on his feet and ready to depart. “Can’t we dump him off on Krista and then go back downtown?”
Grumbling under his breath about the unfairness of having to report to Krista, Rathaniel followed the laborer duo by reflex. With his mind cluttered by questions of what if and how come, he didn’t bother sparing the crowd around him so much as a token glance. With Mary still complaining about food, it was all too easy for Rath to mechanically trail after her voice.
It wasn’t until they had navigated the stairs and begun walking down the dimly lit concrete street that he took a moment to look around. Due to the time of day, most people were either at their job assignments or downtown enjoying a rec day. This left the streets sparsely populated.
Sparsely, in this case, meant Rath, his friends, a few scattered laborers, and the Peace Keeper that had exited the tram behind them.