ARC10

Chapter 25

When I return to my cot, I slide the trunk under it. I swing my legs over to stretch full out on the canvas surface. It's nearly 1800 hours. The whole night spreads ahead of me.

With a bare light bulb ensconced on the wall dimmed to half-power, I open to the first page of Brave New World.

I jerk awake at 0600 with page one crushed to my chest. Grumbling into the darkness, I frantically uncrumple the thin material.

"Dean's gonna kill you." Simon's groggy voice echoes from his side of the pod. "That one's his favorite."

I sneer in his direction and press hard on both ends of the book to compress the pages in the middle. When I release my hold, something slips from it to my leg.

It's one of the small blossoms from the orange trees. The diminutive flower with its delicate white petals is dried in perpetual bloom. Careful not to break it, I hold the stem between my fingers. Inspired by the acceleration of my heartbeat, a breath escapes.

"You two are disgusting," Simon says in his corner. Before he shifts to face the wall, I catch a little bit of his old cheer in the smile he's not even trying to suppress.

Returning the flower to the book, I lay it on my cot. I don't have time to fawn over secret messages hidden in symbolic botany today. It's time to float back to my stoop on Level 4.

The marketplace already bustles with activity by the time I arrive, but it's not the same hubbub as it has been before. There is something slightly askew this morning, something similar to stuffing a too-big screw into a snug hole. Similar to the other times I've come here, I head to the pile of flour sacks to observe the world lurch erratically onward. But today will be different because I realize I'm no longer truly alone.

My face flushes. I can't tell if it's the soft heat kindled from where Dean's hands are still caressing my skin or the stagnant air unstirred by broken air units again. Memories of his promises engulf me. The heat rises.

When I reach my destination, I nestle into the stoop, more cozy than I've ever been before. I close my eyes, allowing the warmth to settle over my bones. I should get back to business, but I recall the little white flower pressed between pages of words that are loved by the man I—

"There's no fucking point! Shut it all down! We're leaving. There's nothing you bottom-feeding steel-suckers can whine about anymore. Tee-minus forty-five days, motherfuckers!" A wild-eyed man with short-cropped hair charges through one of the booths at my left. He flings his arms around with destructive vigor, shoving the jars of fruit preserves and honey to the floor. He overturns a table, kicking the legs, breaking them with a resonant crack.

People walking past stare not at the man but at the merchandise.

They desperately eye the jars rolling by.

Their eyes shift around the room.

They reach out to snatch the goods.

They check who's watching.

I am. I'm watching as they stuff the stolen products into their pockets. They move on as if they are oblivious to the vendor on her hands and knees, attempting to grab it all before it disappears forever.

There's something brewing around us. Before the situation escalates, my military mind kicks into overdrive. I may be in my civvies, but a Reaper's reputation follows her with or without her grim battle dress uniform. I have to help settle this.