City of Cruelty and Copper (Temperance Era) (6 page)

“Then why are we here?” I sounded terse, like I wanted to punch the wall only it was covered in rubies and I’d come away with a bloody and broken hand. Somewhere between me being really angry and thinking about punching things, Isaac had kissed me. His hands were on my face, his body was against mine, and his tongue was parting my lips making me suck in air through my nose while he explored my mouth. Tingles spread from my chest and down my legs. I gripped his waist at his hips and forced us together. His hands slid down my shoulders and looped around my back, holding me to him. I could feel the fast-beating pulse of his heart against mine.

And then I needed air. My hands went slack on his hips, my lips stopped kissing him back. I slumped away towards the rubies and felt the sharp things poking into my back. I tilted my head up in an attempt to kiss him again but all I felt was something hard hitting my temple. “Ow.” I rubbed the place where I had hit my head.

“Are you okay?”

I remembered in that moment that Isaac was my friend and that he had kissed me, really kissed me. It was like nothing I had expected and everything I had ever wanted in a kiss all at the same time. There was nothing hesitant or awkward about it. My mouth hung open, dumbfounded as I moved my lips trying to figure out how to talk again. “My head is spinning a little.”

“Yeah mine too,” Isaac said. He sounded out of breath.

My stomach did flip-flops as I reached out and touched the stone that I had collided with. I pushed myself carefully away from the wall and looked back at it. I almost wanted to yell at it for ruining such a great moment. “No I mean I hit my head and I feel a bit woozy.”

“Are you okay?” His tone was different than it had been before all the kissing began. He sounded genuinely concerned, like he would carry me all the way home if I were really hurt. I rubbed the sore spot on my head and smiled. He really liked me, and I really liked him.

“I think I’ll be fine.”

Isaac clicked on his flashlight for the first time since we had gotten down here and shone it away from me but just enough that he could see my face. I closed one eye and squinted at him, not liking the idea of light when it could be dark and I could be touching him. “I think the appeal of this place is wearing off. As it turns out, it’s really not that great if you want to be alone with someone.”

I laughed as he crouched on the floor, preparing to sashay through the short tunnel. I followed his lead as we made our way back through it. We stopped a few times on the way back, unable to let the heat of what we had just discovered die out before we hit the surface. Our second kiss made me feel safe. I could count on Isaac to help me smooth out the relationship with my father. When I took my place in the Senate, I could count on Issac being there, supporting me as I spoke out against the idea of finding the formula for immortality. I’d further my father’s ideas of Nuclear Expeditions and see what we could discover outside the walls of Temperance.

We neared the smooth sidewalks and my communicator beeped. I pulled it out and looked at the time. Sunset settled over the horizon, the thirteen-hundred-and-eighth annual Temperance Day coming to a close. I put my communicator back in my belt and slid my hand into his.

“I need to get back to the Arena,” I said.

“Will you come to the East side later?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I’ll paint something nice on your wall.”

We neared the gates to the Arena and Isaac pulled his hand out of mine. “You’re not afraid?”

“I’m not really afraid of anything anymore.”

Isaac shook his head as he moved away from me. I watched him as he rounded the Arena, fading from sight. Thundering applause erupted as fireworks zinged into the air. Fable had lived again but that didn’t matter to me. My world no longer revolved around the immortal girl and the founding families and the stigma of Temperance. My world had become so much more, it belonged to me now. I couldn’t wait to find out what it would be like.

CARNIVAL

3330CE |1310TE

I wasn’t suicidal.

I was homicidal, insane and paranoid, but I had no desire to die. Not for real. Playing games with me in the Arena was one thing. I was used to bear traps, zombies, and unexpected trap doors. What I wasn’t prepared for was this. Every day for the past two weeks someone has been dangerously close to my cell. I hear their breathing on the other side of the lead wall that separates me from their world. I hear their steady gait, boom, boom, boom across the sculpted cave floor. I hear the click of the little metal container and I smell it.

Orange juice.

There’s no challenge in it, they never open my cage, they never bother to let me out. They set it down, just outside of my cell and leave. I inhale the scent for hours. It’s always the same tangy orange scent, the same chemical freshness hitting my nostrils. I breathe it in forgetting anything except the orange juice. I black out to the smell, curl up on the ground inside my cage hoping that it goes away. I’m bored enough as it is, I don’t need familiar smells keeping me out of my trance.

Footsteps sound and I’m alert. Whoever brings the orange juice comes back hours later, removes the canister. They say nothing to me, hurrying away like they might be caught. As soon as it’s Temperance Day I’ll tell Hattie. I won’t tell Hattie. She doesn’t have time for an investigation, it’s only orange juice. She’ll remind me that I’m Immortal, that nothing, not even a meat grinder or a guillotine can kill me. She’ll remind me that the Fountain of Youth made me immortal, regenerative, and that whether I like it or not, I’m alive.

I’m also in captivity, but she doesn’t seem to talk about that.

It was only partially my choice. Senate wanted to keep me locked away for my own good. In the first years after discovering Temperance and my fortunate predicament, there were tests. These tests weren’t done in the sterile labs that existed now, these tests were done in the streets, in the little clay structures they call homes. I bounced from one founding family to the next, from scientists to doctors to politicians. I was passed around like a new species meant to be dissected. They poked and prodded me, tested my intelligence, interrogated me, you name it, they did it to me.

After months of experimentation they deemed me an unlikely threat. I stayed with the Chungs while Temperance was formed. People from the mainland were brought over, thousands of refugees by day, in any manner and condition. Most of them were burn victims, all of them were radiation victims. Lots of them died. Michelle Chung was a doctor, so there was always someone screaming in her dwelling. I refuse to call it a house because when I lived in Argentina we had real houses. They were made with wood and bricks. They had plumbing, heat, air conditioning. Luxuries I would never know in my lifetime.

My endless lifetime.

Michelle Chung died a few years later. Her sons took over the family business, and their sons were the ones that began work on the underground labs. The Crays established a government at Central, they created Temperance Day. I was forced to make a speech every year. The Grims opened a school and created a curriculum. The Ketterlings excavated more of Temperance. They owned a mining company in Argentina. When there was an Argentina. The Gibbons were farmers, they solved the growing food issues. From what I understand, the Brightons were technology majors. Since there was no such thing as Apple anymore they were useless until an expedition to the former United States of America dug up enough equipment to run televisions throughout Temperance. There was technology, but without Hollywood, it became a public service announcement system.

Preston Engel was the only religious man to survive the nuclear blasts. He was the eighth of the founding families and after everything that had happened, he lost his faith. I used to be Christian, going to a huge church in Buenos Aires with my parents once a month. The Senate voted against religion of any form, calling Temperance the new world, and with it new beliefs. The official religion in Temperance was no religion, not since I became Immortal anyway.

At least they didn’t believe I was the second coming.

A loud bang on the door knocked me out of my day dreaming. Due to the boredom I often put myself into a trance and pretended I was somewhere in the past. The past was easier than the present. I peeled my fifteen year old body off the floor and stood, squinting in the dark.

“Drink the orange juice,” someone said through a voice modulator. I raised an eyebrow at the Brighton technology as the lead door slid open and a large man with a mask on his face stood a few feet away from my cell, stun gun pointed in my direction in one hand, voice modulator in the other. With the unformed plastic it was impossible to make out his face. He wore the standard issue one piece like everyone else, which also made it impossible for me to know who he was.

I crouched, the metal canister within reach. My fingers grasped the container. Instead of drinking it I popped the top and hurled it at whoever it was, orange juice drenching the mask and seeping into modulator. The stun gun went off, hitting me square in the thigh. Volts of electricity shot through my body. I convulsed, falling on the floor in the cell. They didn’t know it, but the stun guns had no effect on me. When I was nine I watched a kid at church have an epileptic fit. It was the same idea. I lay on my back arms at my side and gradually let the shakes wear off.

The masked man approached, standing over me. His breath smelled like fish. I cringed at the stench as the mask came off and the face of Colin Cray came into view. I thought about tripping him, flipping him onto his stomach, lifting his head, snapping his neck. I did none of those things. He leaned in, orange juice dripping off his collar.

“There’s more than one way to kill Fable the Immortal.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. I didn’t have a snappy retort. I wanted to know what he meant, what he was thinking, what he was going to do. The orange juice was obviously his idea. These past few weeks he had been working up the courage to face me. He was already scared enough of me.

He turned on his heel and stalked out of the cell, letting the lead door close with a dull thud. I heard him bend, pick up the canister, and his footsteps faded as he got farther and farther away.

Twenty four hours later it was Temperance Day. I didn’t have the pleasure of Hattie Alexander and her bulging waist. Before the sun rose I heard steps clicking down the stairs. The remainder of the previous day and night were filled with memories, being brought to trial, being found criminally insane, sentenced to life inside the lead box. None of it was televised, none of it publically recorded. People still thought I lived in some private room in Central, their version of a castle, a capital and a legislative building. Central was massive, rooms stretched out in spirals and spirals of corridors. At the very center was the courtyard, where my sentencing had taken place. I dared anyone to become immortal, to watch as thousands of people died, as thousands more voluntarily tested products meant to make them immortal.

Watch thousands die and try to stay sane.

Do it.

I dare you.

“Fable,” a sharp voice cut into my reverie. I sat, the leather against my legs squeaking as I shifted. The lead door was open, Colin Cray stood in the doorway, stun gun raised. No, scratch that, real gun raised. Not much more effective on me, but smooth move. I arched an eyebrow.

“You fancy an early show or something?” I said, purposefully popping the first clasp of my corset style top. Colin flushed bright red and a sly smile danced on my lips. I loved making men nervous. Here I was, older than they could even imagine, and still as hot as a teenybopper wet dream. I licked my lips and ruffled out my fiery orange hair.

Colin laughed, something that made me well, not laugh. “I said I would kill you Fable, and I meant every word.”

I rolled my eyes. “Is that gun loaded with isotope bullets?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not going to feel a thing.”

“You’ll feel this.”

Colin Cray turned on his heel leaving the door wide open. I watched him, not budging from my spot inside the cage until he turned and shot at me. It missed, hitting the wall behind me. “It’s Temperance Day Fable! You’re not going to let your fans down are you?”

It was way too early for this crap. Hattie would be showing up in a few hours, wondering where I am, if I escaped or something. Yeah, I’d be out terrorizing the children of Temperance, telling them the truth about their little harmonic existence. My combat boots clomped along the floor as I followed Cray to where ever he was going. I didn’t really want him seeing me naked, so if this plan had anything to do with dressing me up in some humiliating costume, I was going to snap his neck.

He led me through the corridors to the lavish double doors. Opening them he ushered me into the oval room, with the marble floor and the pillars. We were somewhere below the Arena, in one of the places the Atlanteans had crafted. I thought that theory was a load of bull, but then, I couldn’t offer up any of my own explanations for it. There were years of scholars who had gone above and beyond the scope of my former reality, new books written, new languages and traditions created. The only reason they kept me was because they couldn’t get rid of me.

I looked around the room, no girls, no costumes, nothing. It was bare of anything. I turned to Colin Cray. He was busy on the other side of the room with another set of doors. The set that I usually went through when I was being lead to the Arena floor, an elevator behind those doors. The Brightons had it installed after finding the shaft that led underneath the Arena.

“Aren’t you going to doll me up?”

Cray turned, his lips a line. He was nothing to ride home about, wrinkles around his hard blue eyes, saggy cheeks, buzz cut brown hair, medium build. He was in the military style dress all the founding families wore during the celebration. I didn’t think much of the crew style hat, the polyester slacks, the brass buttoned jacket, the patches sewn into the breast of it. All he needed were the gloves and he’d be ready for a full salute.