Daughters of Forgotten Light Read online

  Sarah laughed. “I’m doing it!”

  “You’re also going slower than ass sweat,” Taylor said. “Up the speed.”

  Confidence fueled Sarah now. Speed? Damn right, she could up the speed. Sarah flicked her wrists forward and the cyclone bolted faster than she’d anticipated. Her back snapped, her body like a ragdoll taped to a rocket, no control. She was heading toward the gathered women and the back of Grindy’s warehouse.

  “Holy shit!” Dipity screamed, and threw Ava and Sterling out of the way. Hurley Girly and Lena jumped in the opposite direction.

  Grindy simply sidestepped and shouted, “Flick back the handles!”

  Sarah flinched to obey, snapping the handlebars back as hard and as quickly as she could. The cyclone sank and slowed, screeching against the glass floor until it came to a stop by lightly bumping Grindy’s building.

  “I’m sorry!” Sarah huffed from her nostrils and lowered her head, embarrassed. She could have killed them all, the only people who would have any use for her in this godforsaken place. And she’d wrecked it all.

  Someone laughed. Then the rest of them joined in.

  Sarah looked up. Lena was bent over in her hilarity. Sterling smiled and brushed off nonexistent dust from her knees and shoulders. Hurly Girly and the rest laughed in a huddle.

  “Grindy barely even fucking moved,” Dipity said.

  The older woman shrugged. “I’ve seen the same shit before. Worse even.”

  “You’re not mad?” Sarah asked. Had they been expecting her to screw up?

  “Hell yeah, I’m mad!” Ava said through her chuckles. “But for your first time, it wasn’t too bad.”

  “You should have seen Lena’s first ride after I picked her from the box,” Grindy said. “I bet a walrus could have driven it better.”

  “You picked Lena?”

  “Who do you think started this gang in the first place?” Grindy said, cupping Sarah’s face in her hands. She wiped away one of Sarah’s tears. “Now quit all this crying shit, chica. You don’t have time for it.”

  Sarah cleared the rest of the wet from her cheeks and eyes. She moved to get off the bike but Lena held a hand up for her to stay put.

  “Stay on,” Lena said. “We’re going to the Core.”

  “Hell, I’ll get my cyclone and come with you,” said Grindy. “I have to top off a few of my energy reserves anyway.”

  “Sounds good,” Lena said. “We’ll have to go slow until Pao gets a better feel for it. You riding along might discourage anybody from fucking with us.”

  “Well,” Grindy winked at Lena, “it’s a good thing there’s a truce. Ain’t there?”

  Chapter 10

  Dolfuse lugged a metal case up the steps of the shipper port as a drizzle began to fall and wet her green blazer and matching skirt.

  Why couldn’t the enviroshields block out all the other godforsaken weather? Yes, flowers needed water, and grass was needed to accent those fine buildings downtown. But if they could put women on a floating square, light years away, surely they could find a way to do without disgusting, cold precipitation. Despite what detergent companies sold as “spring rain scent,” it always smelled like a wet dog.

  Shaped like a white cube, the shipper port stood bigger than any monument in Washington. Dolfuse had often thought some former Disney World architect had a hand in its design. She’d never gotten used to its size and color, gaudy and yet so plain. What would shippees brought here be thinking as they approached the massive square? Probably what Dolfuse had thought as she rode the monorail from the entrance gate. Those girls – shippees – would be going for a ride, no doubt, but there was no illusion it was a theme park.

  Dolfuse shook the droplets of rain from her clothes and let a twosome of armed guards open the door for her. The men nodded without smiling and she returned the same. Nothing gave her goose bumps like that curt masculinity Bobby made so attractive. And hell’s bells if she didn’t find herself missing her husband for the millionth time that day.

  Immediately through the door stood the scanner. One would think a UCNA senator would have immunity from such things, but the space port was a different world and the shippers working within its walls were a different breed, loyal to their leader, a woman named Beckles. Dolfuse had planned her script for the anticipated scrutiny of the metal case in her arms. She just had to keep calm and follow her plan.

  “Senator Dolfuse,” said a chubby woman from behind the control panel. Her rash-red cheeks glimmered under the lights. “I’ve only seen you on TV. You’re shorter than I thought. What are you doing here?”

  Screw you, too.

  Dolfuse conjured a smile. “Just a small favor to ask of Spangler.”

  “Put your case on the track and step through the gate, please.” The guard’s politeness dripped with insincerity.

  Dolfuse did as she was asked, and the alarm remained silent when she stepped through. Now she had to wait for the case to clear its own scan.

  “I’m wondering if I can ask you something,” the guard said.

  “Yes?”

  “I hear they might be trying to amend the Interstellar Relocation Act. Make it to where anyone over sixty-five can get sent up by their adult kids. That gonna happen?”

  “I’ve only heard a few mentions of the idea. There’s no official proposal.”

  “I’d love to see the look on my mother’s face when I tell her she’s on a one-way trip to the O. She tried to send me to Oubliette back when I was younger. My dad begged her not to. Never forgot that. Hey, what is this thing?”

  Dolfuse’s throat tightened. She wished she could throw out a quick answer, or at least swallow. The guard’s eyes squinted at a screen showing what lay inside Dolfuse’s box: a dark, shadowy, giant sperm.

  “What are you bringing in here?”

  “Model ship.” Dolfuse cleared her throat. “Spangler is good with fixing them. My niece, she broke it, and I thought he could take a look.”

  “We really have enough to do around here without worrying with this kind of junk. Him especially.”

  “I understand.” Dolfuse stood a little straighter, propping up what confidence she could. “It’ll only take a minute.”

  The guard rolled her eyes and handed Dolfuse the case. “OK.” Dolfuse tried to pull the case away but the guard didn’t release. “Let me know when I can give Mom the good news.”

  “I’ll be sure to keep you up to date.”

  The guard let go and turned back, talking to herself. “Just you wait, Mom. I’m going to push the launch button myself.”

  Spangler oversaw port control five stories up and had a full view of the launch room. He had assistants every now and then, but sending a few girls, manna, and whatever church donations the guards decided they didn’t want for themselves was an easy enough job for one man, especially after five years.

  “Hey, babycakes!” Spangler said when Dolfuse walked in.

  A single lamp lit the gloomy space, casting computers and monitors as shadowy corpses. It didn’t get exciting around the shipper port until the quarterly launch day, with the next one scheduled for the following month. The launch room, on the other side of a long, curved window, lay dark as well. Leaning over a cluster of buttons, Spangler had been poking them with a single finger.

  Spangler hadn’t cut his hair since he and Dolfuse were in high school and now it neared his elbows. He wore glasses rimmed with wild colors and always found a way to work the old United States flag design into his wardrobe – a response to the nickname he’d gotten when they were kids: “Star Spangler Banger.” It made absolutely no sense and seemed to irritate Dolfuse more than it did Spangler. At least, until the day she told him it was some roundabout way of insulting him for being gay. The other kids whispered he’d be sent to Oubliette because he was too much of a lady to be sent to the army. That’s when he got worried.

  Dolfuse had no problem lying to Spangler’s parents, saying she was his girlfriend. She would even throw in the occa
sional smooch to solidify the charade. Apparently, his parents were agreeable to an interracial relationship. Dolfuse had no doubt the senior Spanglers, deep down, knew the truth about their son. According to Spangler, if he ever came out they’d throw him on the first ship to basic training. No son of theirs! And all of that.

  “I just have to keep pretending a little while longer,” Spangler would say. “Eighteen seems so far away.”

  “I’ll help you get there,” Dolfuse had told him, on more than one occasion. “Any way I can.”

  And he’d made it. They both had.

  “You must be here to worship my beautiful face,” he said now in the control room.

  “I’ve got it bad for you.” Dolfuse set the case on a control desk. She’d wait for him to point it out.

  They hugged.

  “Caught me at a busy time.”

  “I can see that.” Dolfuse waved a hand toward the empty room.

  “What’s in the box?” he asked.

  “Open it and see.”

  Spangler hopped up from the control panel and stretched, pressing his hands to his lower back. A few clicks from the latches and he had the case’s lid up. “Bobby sending you his oversized seed from overseas now? But it’s black, must have died on the way over.”

  Dolfuse would have normally laughed. She would have. But it was much too soon. She turned away.

  “Oh, Lindy, I’m sorry. You know my mouth is always a mile ahead of the rest of me. Here, hold on.” He got up and went somewhere behind her, and came back with a tissue in his outstretched hand. “He’ll be back soon. The war can’t last forever.”

  “It’s not that,” Dolfuse said. “I’m still thinking about the baby.”

  “I see. So why are you here? With that thing in the box?”

  “The vice president,” Dolfuse said. “She’s given me a job.”

  “I thought you worked for Arkansas, not the West Wing.”

  “You know how things work in Washington. When they say jump…”

  “You strap on a rocket. Yeah, I get it. But I don’t like what I’m piecing together.”

  “Martin’s wanting to know what happens on Oubliette,” Dolfuse said.

  Spangler’s eyes darted from side to side. He always did that when he began to worry and his mind became garbled like one of his terrible abstract paintings. Hurrying to the door, he locked it, peeking out the glass inset. When he turned back to Dolfuse, his sympathetic disposition had vanished. His nostrils flared, his eyes wild. When he next spoke, he was much quieter. “So you want me to smuggle a package in the next shipment?”

  “Not inside. I don’t want the drone getting spotted. It needs to be placed on the exterior.”

  “Well this just keeps getting better and better. How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

  Dolfuse looked down and glided her tongue over her top teeth. “I don’t know.”

  “Lindy, we go way back. I’d be God knows where if it weren’t for you. But this… I’m paid up. We’ve been even for a while.”

  “I know. This would be a huge favor. To me and Martin. For the continent.”

  “If they even thought I would mess around with the launches, let alone smuggle something, I’d be out on my ass, if not on the front lines in Pakistan.”

  “Let’s not pretend we both don’t want to keep this quiet. My career would be over, same as yours.”

  “Y’all won’t be able to save me if I get found out. You wouldn’t be here all secret agent-like if Martin had gone through the right channels. This is back room, under-the-table type stuff.”

  “I guess it is. Look, see if you can find a way. If you can’t, you can’t, and I’ll understand. Fair enough?”

  Spangler stared at her, not speaking for a while. Then he said, “You always get me with that ‘fair enough’ line. Like I’m the one getting the deal.” With a sigh, Spangler threw his hands in the air. “I’ll try.”

  “I appreciate it.” Dolfuse smiled. “More than I have time to say right now. I promise I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”

  Spangler nodded and picked up the drone. He held it in front of his face, turning it over.

  “I have to go,” Dolfuse said. She saw his attention was now completely focused on the drone.

  “Yeah,” Spangler said, as if he hadn’t heard a word.

  Dolfuse stepped back into the hall with a hollow feeling, like she was a smoking crater left by a bomb. The pristine white tiles in front of her went on forever and she just kept walking, looking for any mark or scuff. But none ever came. She’d never left Spangler with so few words, or so harsh a vibe between them. She was so focused on replaying their brief meeting in her head, she didn’t notice she’d lost her way and stood in a part of the shipper port she’d never seen before.

  The halls became more maze-like and unending, but she finally found an elevator. This wasn’t the one she’d taken up to see Spangler. She wouldn’t have even noticed it if she hadn’t been focused on the slick white walls to her right and spotted the small lift button set to its side.

  The inside of the elevator only had one button to press, so Dolfuse pressed it. Maybe it was a quick way for personnel to reach the lobby.

  But she didn’t step out into the lobby. Here, there was only more antiseptic white – except for the clear glass wall ahead. On the other side, guards marched young women under the threat of sticks buzzing with electricity. The shipper guards wore blue and the brim of their hats hid their eyes. Heads down, the prisoners marched on.

  Outcasts. Unwanteds. Shippees.

  There had to be at least a dozen in the group. They wore white jumpsuits and if their hair was long they’d pulled it back with a white band. The shippees were all races, shapes, and sizes, a veritable representation of all of Earth’s womenfolk, not to belong to Earth for much longer. Some walked with crutches or shook their heads uncontrollably as they went, others didn’t show any physical reason their mothers gave them up.

  A girl stumbled and fell to the floor. A guard lifted a stun stick and marched toward her, but one of the other shippees reached the fallen girl before the guard did. She placed the girl’s arm around her shoulder and moved back into alignment. The guard stopped, lowered the weapon, and the group continued on.

  Dolfuse moved closer to the glass after they’d gone, thinking the hallway on the other side would be empty. But another group trotted past only a minute after the others had left. Same number of girls. Same number of guards. None of them gave recognition of her standing there. They kept moving and Dolfuse looked beyond them, to the huge room they stomped toward.

  It stretched below ground, like an upside-down tower. Hundreds of shippees either marched around or let the guards drag them out of tiny cells with glass doors and white walls.

  Hundreds.

  Dolfuse and most others on the Hill were under the impression the port launched the girls soon after arriving. But what she’d stumbled on, what she saw on the other side of that glass told her the Warden, Beckles, was stockpiling shippees, probably holding back a few from every shipment, building their numbers slowly at a time. For what?

  “Senator Dolfuse.” The voice jolted her.

  When she turned, two guards stood shoulder to shoulder, dressed in the same blue uniform as those leading the shippees through the subterranean prison.

  “Yes,” Dolfuse said.

  “Come with us.” The one on the right spoke.

  “I was just leaving.”

  “No ma’am. Warden Beckles instructed us to bring you straight to her. Now.”

  Chapter 11

  The Daughters of Forgotten Light tore through the streets of Oubliette. In a way, Sarah found it easy being the ass of the gang. All she had to do was follow where the others led. On the other hand, a few times on the way to the Core she’d become freaked out about how fast they were going and slowed down, having to go even faster to catch up.

  Hurley Girly had to stop once to fetch her. “We can’t take it slow out here ju
st for you. Slow is dead. Got it?”

  Sarah said she’d try, and that was good enough for Hurley Girly.

  Lena let Grindy have her old spot at the head of the V. No words had to be said. Lena just waited for Grindy to rip onto the street and the rest followed as usual. The Daughters respected the old woman a whole lot, and it showed in their voices, in how they held themselves. Reverence had to be earned on Oubliette, Sarah realized, but it held for life.

  “Slow up, Pao!” Hurley Girly screamed from in front of her.

  Sarah slowed and veered clumsily out of the V.

  “We’re coming up on the Core.”

  A few heaved breaths and Sarah got back into formation. They rounded the next curve and a hundred feet or so ahead, dropping into unknown darkness, waited the gaping mouth of a large tunnel entrance.

  “My favorite part!” Dipity shouted.

  The tunnel swallowed them, the blaze of Daughter cyclone wheels their only light, as the bikes dropped faster and faster. Sarah’s gut tightened. But she wouldn’t have traded the feeling for all the manna in Oubliette.

  She held on tight, always staying behind Hurley Girly, the only thing she had to worry about. The gang turned suddenly left. Sarah shook with nerves, but turned with them. Light came from somewhere below, and as the gang stayed tight in the turn it showed they were rounding a spiral path that led down to something very large and bright. The Daughters raised their left arms with a fist, whooping and yelling like it was their last hoorah.

  Sarah tipped her head toward the side of the spiral. At the bottom spun a massive ball of energy between two columns, one column hanging above and the other sticking out of the floor. Turning like a small sun, the Core was blinding. When the gang reached the bottom, they slowed and had to split to each side of the lower column. The other Daughters shut down their cyclones, but it took Sarah a minute to remember she needed to pull the handles all the way back.

  “This is the Core,” Grindy said. “Everything that moves or lights up in this suck hole derives its power from this. The Veil, the engines that recycle our air, everything.”