Parador (Juggernaut #2)

Twenty Five

Ten minutes later they turned off the highway and onto a wide private road lined with young trees. The sound of the highway faded as they followed its winding journey to a pair of large metal gates detailed with shields and ancient heraldry set in a wall of smooth grey stone.

The gates opened at their approach, and once they were through, the stone and glass and steel of the city vanished from sight to be replaced by manicured lawns, landscaped gardens and carefully planted trees. The private road swept through the grounds toward a large house of ancient red brick.

Jayce was, somehow, still talking. There seemed to be no exhausting his nonsense. Now he was babbling about the history of the house, and how it had been shipped here from earth, brick by brick, years before the fall.

Tila had tuned this tale out along with almost everything else Jayce had to say. There was no value in anything he had to say, whether it was boasting, or just lies to impress them.

Instead, she sat sideways on the rear seat of the cruiser with her arm flung on to the seat back. Tila planted her chin on her shoulder and gazed through the rear window as the city of Caldera disappeared behind closing gates, and the secrets of Parador were once again locked out of her reach.

Tila pulled her gaze from the past and focussed on the present. Their road turned downhill, and behind them both the gate and the wall were already invisible among the artful landscaping. It was like being in the country again.

Ellie drank in the view, seeing new contrasts between the wild untamed nature of the land outside the grounds and the cultivated grounds that existed inside.

Only Malachi seemed unimpressed.

'I don't get it,' he said.

Jayce switched on the autopilot to finish their journey and turned around in his seat. He enjoyed driving on streets and highways far more than the slow careful manoeuvring required in the grounds of the house. The cruiser could handle that tedious job without him.

'What don't you get?'

'I don't get where you want to live. If you want to live in a city, why build this estate? If you want to live in the country, why be so close to the city?'

'Well, you have to remember that we didn't build this place, the company did. They own it all really, but we get to live here as part of my family's contract. Did you know that almost the whole city is company owned?'

'One company owns the whole city?' said Ellie.

'Not any more. They tried that once, it didn't work out too well. One company has too much control. Now a single company can own a nice chunk, but not a huge chunk, you know?'

'Why not?' said Malachi.

'To encourage competition. Too much power in the hands of one company doesn't work, no matter how good it looks on the financial projections.'

'But don't the companies have all the power here anyway? What's stopping them working together and controlling everything?'

'There are laws and stuff. Probably. I don't know too much about that to be honest. But it works.'

'Do you still have a government in charge of the city or country?' said Malachi.

'More like a regulator. No one votes for them,' said Jayce.

'What about hospitals, or police?'

'All company owned.'

'Is that a good idea?' said Tila.

'Is it a bad idea? Like I said, it works. I know other places do things differently but it's all good if you can pay for it, right?'

'What if you can't pay? What happens then?' said Ellie.

Jayce shrugged. 'I don't know. It's never been a problem for us.'

'But it must be a problem for some people,' insisted Tila.

Jayce shrugged again. 'If you want to talk politics you should wait until more people arrive.'

'You mean I can get to talk politics with a bunch of privileged trust-fund kids who have probably only been off-world when it was on a cruise ship? Wow, what an awesome party this is going to be.'

'When will people be arriving?' said Malachi, ignoring Tila's hostile sarcasm.

Jayce checked his wrist where a gold and silver band sparkled one last time in the late afternoon sunlight before the cruiser entered the garage. 'Not for a couple more hours. I have time to give you the tour if you'd like?'

'I'd love to see more,' said Ellie, not looking at the house.

'Sounds good,' said Malachi. 'Tila?'

Tila nodded. 'I guess.' She twisted in her seat to look out of the rear window one last time as the garage doors closed behind them, shutting out the sunlight and the greenery.

'We can start in the pool,' said Jayce as the cruiser swung itself into an empty bay and turned itself off. Gull-wing doors folded up to release them.

'You have a pool? A swimming pool?' said Tila. Even her mood couldn't hide the fact that this was good news.

Jayce flashed another grin. 'Oh, you like that? It's not too ostentatious for you, is it? It's not a waste of money?'

Ellie tugged at Jayce's hand to stop him teasing her friend. 'Jayce!'

'I'm only kidding, really,' said Jayce. 'Come on, follow me.'

Jayce led the way with Ellie by his side. Malachi and Tila followed. Malachi touched Tila's elbow.

'Hey, T. Not happy?' he whispered.

Tila shook her head and replied just as softly, 'Not yet.'

'Because of Jayce?'

'Maybe. Mostly because of this place. This house. Can we get out of here if we need to? Those are big walls and big gates.'

'You feel trapped here? Tila, this isn't the Juggernaut. We're not stuck inside a thousand tin cans surrounded by vacuum. I'm sure we can leave any time we need to.'

'Yeah? How sure?'

'Pretty sure? How hard can it be? It's not like this place is a fortress, is it?'

'I don't know. Is it?'

'Tila, stop worrying. Just do me a favour, okay?'

'What favour?'

'Pretend that for the next hour nothing is going to go wrong. Think about the good news, about what we accomplished today. We've met three investors. I know, I know, it didn't go like you hoped, but at least it's a start. We've done the best we can so for now let's have a break. Let's swim. You know, have some fun. Can you do that? One hour.'

'For one hour, sure,' said Tila. 'But what's going to happen in two hours?'