The Killing Jar (3 page)

SUBTERRANEAN CHICAGO, NORTH AMERICA

AUGUST 7, 2232

Katherine’s marble-white hand waited for the conducer. Her strange pale lips smiled at her victory.

Mable strode forward with false confidence and placed it in her palm. Some things were more valuable than money. With the one small device, Mable bought protection and purpose in the Root. If ever anyone tried to get her exiled, Katherine would help keep her underground.

Her and Hadley both.

“Please, do sit down.” Long fingers with claw-like nails pointed to a plush chair.

Mable did as she was told, though she sat on edge. Dark Ones were a strange breed. They had unreadable black eyes and a taste for the dramatic. Mable’s back remained arrow straight as she waited for Katherine to tell her what she wanted.

Nothing in the Root was free.

“You’ve done well for yourself here. If you’re not careful, I may have to find a more permanent use for you. How long have you been here? A while now?” Katherine’s voice was silk, elegant and smooth, a stark contrast to the tiny scales that covered her flesh.

“Almost a year.”

“How do you like it?”

Mable couldn’t decide why the strange woman would care, or even pretend to care. It had been a long time since an adult, even a Dark One, had pretended to care about her. It threw up major red flags.

She answered honestly, but kept her suspicions from her voice. “I think it’s better than some and not as good as others.” She tried to mirror Katherine’s even, dignified tone.

“You’ve been to others like the Root,” Katherine correctly inferred.

“I was in Eden last year, and the Arbor for a year before that.”

“Eden sits beneath Atlanta?” Mable nodded. “I’ve never heard of the Arbor.”

“It was one of the better ones, I think. Beneath Las Vegas.” Mable didn’t bother to list her stints below New York and Houston.

“I thought Vegas was gone,” Katherine admitted. Mable was surprised she knew anything about cities she’d never visited, cities on a surface world she had never seen. Then again, Katherine was far more intelligent than anyone gave her credit for.

“It is. The desert reclaimed it after the war. The Arbor tapped into the groundwater, actually a long time before the war I think. It was pretty old.”

“What made it the best?”

“The trees, the gardens. The people were—” Mable paused as the memories flooded her. “They were kind, welcoming.”

“Then why leave?”

Mable closed her eyes. She’d hoped the woman wouldn’t ask, wouldn’t care to know, but of course, her luck had never been that good. “I was just ready for a change,” she lied. Getting into old wounds was not something she was prepared to do with such a powerful figure.

Thankfully, Katherine sensed her unwillingness to divulge, asking instead, “What do you know of the Dark Ones?”

Mable gaped, unsure of how to describe the subterranean race to its most powerful member.

Creepy, scaly skin. Penetrating black eyes. Heads balder than a baby. Mable didn’t even know where to start.

She choked back her insults and said, “They were underground well before the war. A group of German immigrants relocated beneath the streets of Chicago back during the Second World War. Never left, I guess.”

Katherine pursed her lips. “I didn’t ask for a history lesson.”

Mable knew at once she’d made a grave mistake. Dark Ones wanted to rule the underground, to become the new, advanced race that lived within the planet rather than on it. Katherine’s sour expression was a clear indication that she wanted no reminder of their past on the surface.

Whoops.

“What do you know of us? What can we do?” she clarified.

“Oh, um, you can see in the dark.”

“Everyone knows that. What else?”

Grappling for whatever answer Katherine wanted from her, Mable said, “You have scaled skin. You need high moisture. You thrive in the humidity of these caves.”

At last, Katherine leaned back in her chair with a hint of smile. “Go on.”

“You need to breathe clean, oxygenated air just like we do.” Her mind raced. She was desperate to avoid disappointing the woman. “You need the warmth of the core. Your bodies can’t resist the cold like ours.”

“And what does that mean for our survival?”

Mable folded her fingers around each other, fidgeting as she let her brain figure it out. “You can’t leave the underground.”

“Very good,” Katherine mused with all the feigned enthusiasm of an elementary teacher. “Dark Ones are the superior race in a subterranean environment, but we are not ready to sever ties with the surface. Until that time, we are dependent.”

Mable figured it out in an instant. “And you want me to get the last few items you need to become an isolated system.”

Katherine smiled, genuinely impressed, her thin lips stretched over her too-white teeth. “Exactly. I think with your cooperation, the Root can become the great city it was meant to be. Let the surface destroy itself, suffocate and starve. The sooner we are free of them, the better.”

Mable tried to quiet her pulse. This was her chance.

“What do you need?” There were only a few highly-specialized items that couldn’t be made. Whatever it was, Mable was confident it would be a challenge.

“A diode. Mitt will fill you in with the specs.” Katherine paused a moment and said, “If you do this, I’ll have great confidence in you. More than I have already.”

“Thank you.” Mable turned to go, to descend the narrow path back to the life-filled market, back to Hadley.

“There’s one more thing,” Katherine said to her back. When Mable turned, she uttered the words, so strange and impossible Mable’s jaw fell open.

“I want you to marry my son.”

LRF-PQ-291

AUGUST 7, 2232

A slender, manicured hand pulled the black high heeled shoe onto her foot. Aida stood tall and checked her reflection, turning to see the back of her strapless dress and make sure she looked appropriate. Even on the moon, a funeral was no place for a fashion slip-up.

Besides, it helped keep her mind in the present. It gave her hands something to do.

The floor length mirror on the back of her wardrobe door was the only available place to get dressed. The tiny apartment held a bed for the two of them, a nightstand on each side, a wardrobe for each, and a pair of desks that folded into the wall when not in use. There was a mirror in their small bathroom but it was only useful from the waist up.

Aida was stuck trying on different shoes in front of her husband.

“You know no one else cares, right?” Sal sat on the edge of the bed and slid his plain black socks onto his feet. He was the picture of Scholar, boring black shirt and boring black pants. His blonde hair was combed, but still boring. His genetically engineered features were picture perfect, like everyone else. It wasn’t the first time she wondered if they had anything in common.

“I care, and that’s the important thing,” she replied as always.

Aboard the Lunar Research Facility, a city located in the scraped out remnants of the center of the moon, Scholars abounded. Mostly astronomers, astronauts, interstellar flight simulators, robotics experts, and a whole host of cosmic researchers, Aida should have fit in. She was a planetary scientist after all. She was living the Scholar dream, contributing to science in a meaningful way while living in an exotic and interesting colony.

Except she didn’t fit in. Sal wasn’t the first to notice she was the only one of a thousand researchers who cared what kind of fabric she pulled across her shoulders before spending day and night in the lab. She cared if her nails were trimmed or ragged, if her hair was flat or styled. Aida cared, even if no one else did.

It left her with more than a few questions about what she was doing there.

“Well, let me know if wasting time on all that helps you find Goldy.” Sal finished dressing and smeared a hand over his hair before deciding he was ready. Aida thanked the universe she would never have to actually touch her husband.

Satisfied with her own appearance and desperate to be out of the studio apartment they shared, Aida grabbed her ID badge off the hook and stepped into the corridor behind him.

Like a good Scholar couple, Aida and Sal walked next to each other, constant companions in their personal time, though still strangers in so many ways. Thankfully, unlike Artisans and Craftsmen, she wasn’t expected to hold his hand, clutch his arm, or participate in any other repulsive activity she’d seen from couples in other classes.

She was free to walk beside him in silence.

In two years, a geneticist would harvest her eggs and his sperm and isolate the ideal combination to implant into her uterus. Depending on their research success, they might be issued two or three child permits, the only light in her dim personal life. Otherwise, Aida and Sal were copilots, only interacting when required to do so.

Walking beside her husband in the life that should have been a dream come true, Aida couldn’t help but feel something was missing. She was engaged in her work, she loved the hours spent in her lab, but something was wrong. Something had been wrong for a long time.

She hoped the feeling was only her grief at losing Dr. Parr.

The corridor steadily filled with more and more Scholars in black, each to attend the funeral of a man few of them had known. In fact, none had known Jackson Parr better than her.

“Terrible thing, isn’t it?”

Aida looked up at the source of the voice and found Dr. Calvin Hill, one of the newest Scholars at the LRF, just arrived on the last shuttle three months ago. In a black suit and dark-green tie that matched his eyes, he had one of the most cavalier outfits she’d seen yet. Aida was strangely thankful for the change of scenery.

“Awful,” she admitted. Aida had genuinely liked Dr. Parr, had known him for years and studied under him at the Scholar Academy. And it would probably never sit right that she had been the last person to see him alive.

“I’m truly sorry for your loss. Death is never easy, but a situation like this can only be that much harder. Will you let me know if you need anything?” Calvin’s hand on her shoulder was an unaccustomed touch, both comforting and strange.

“Of course,” Aida replied too quickly, unsure of protocol.

“I hope that you will,” he continued, a warm smile illuminating his light complexion and deep, green eyes. “And whenever you’re ready, there’s a few things in the lab that could use an expert opinion.” His hand moved to offer a light squeeze to her elbow before he disappeared in the crowd.

“What was that about?” Sal inquired. His eyes never drifted from the slow stampede of black-robed scientists heading to the deepest depths of the hollowed moon, the largest gathering area and the only one that could hold the entire LRF staff.

“I’m not sure, I guess he has some data to go over,” she replied, though Aida knew perfectly well no data would come in for another twenty-four hours. Good thing Sal would never know the difference.

“How long will this take? I have some data to analyze myself.”

“I imagine about as long as the others.” Seven Scholars had died in the two years since Aida and Sal had received their lunar assignment, though none had had such a personal impact on her.

LRF Central was nearly full by the time they arrived, blending into the sea of black and finding a seat near the back. A hologram of Dr. Parr was projected on the edge of the stage, pacing back and forth with a tablet as he was prone to doing. Had it not been for the glint of holographic light, Aida might have thought it to be her dear mentor in the flesh.

But no, Dr. Parr was far wearier than that vibrant phantom. She hadn’t realized how sallow his cheeks had become, how dark the circles under his eyes. The Jackson Parr that died the night before barely resembled himself.

Something had been terribly wrong.

“That him?” Sal asked with a head nod toward the hologram, though Aida barely had the voice to respond. Her husband and mentor had met several times, but like most Scholars, Sal cared little for personal relationships.

It was something she had shared with Dr. Parr, an understanding of the big picture, that they were all connected. It was something she lost when he died suddenly with no apparent cause of death.

The creepy holographic projection paced the stage until she could look no longer, could sit next to her blind husband no longer. Aida darted from her chair and ran from the room.