Chapter 68

Five days later.

Time: April 1, 2019 5 AM

Jada was at the core hexagon lying on her bed and gazing at the morning through a large bank of windows. She and Madison were now sharing the northern of the two bedrooms that faced due east, and while Madison was still sound asleep, the dawn had awoken Jada five minutes ago. A pretty morning, she thought. The overhead dome was filled with fluffy white clouds, a pure cornflower blue sky, and the bright butter-yellow light of the strange linear sun.

Madison had made a measurement a few days ago and confirmed an early suspicion. The linear sun was not uniformly bright along its length. It was brighter near the north and south poles of the cylindrical sky. It had an intensity profile that provided equal sunlight along the entire length of Wobanakik.

Their society had made a lot progress in the last several days, both at Wobanakik and on the surface. This past Monday Fatima remembered a sporting goods store along Yellow Brick Road that had never been checked out, about three kilometers up-spiral from the segment’s home complex. Her memory was accurate, and at the 56.3 kilometer mark, the society discovered another six of the Little Auk kayaks. Over the next few days, Jada’s group of seventeen people went from being five kayaks short to having a spare. And believing in safety in numbers, Yesterday Suvarna and Tajana had remained with Tom and Carla at the entrance rooms when the new kayaks were transferred to the central island.

Today was the day Lynn would try to push the interface system out of its resonance lock with the Leophones. It was a very brief window of opportunity, opening just before 12:13 PM today and closing a few seconds later. It was critical that the opportunity not be missed. Yesterday Lynn had found their next chance would not occur until another 504 days, another two Wobanakik years.

Jada had scheduled an easy morning for everyone, even cancelling Mandy’s morning kayaking lessons so that some unexpected issue wouldn’t run into the scheduled noontime reset. So the group had a mini-party yesterday evening. Madison made a ton of popcorn and they all watched a movie in the lounge. Mandy dressed in her pajamas had unashamedly curled up by Charles’ side. And now everyone would have nice easy morning. Most people had said they would just sleep in and have a late breakfast together at 9 AM. But Jada was fully awake. She got up, put on a bath robe and headed off for a shower.

She gulped a moment later when she walked into the bath area. Charles was there and he had evidently just taken off his robe and about to step into the shower. He quickly turned his head the other way, pretending Jada hadn’t entered the room. He hung his robe on a hook and walked a bit stiffly into the shower area.

Jada felt a pang of nervousness and also a slight pang of guilt. According to their new social custom, the correct response for both of them was to ignore each other’s presence while in the bathroom. If Charles had truly not noticed her, Jada would probably have turned around and come back twenty minutes later. But she was sure Charles had seen her, and in her bathrobe too. It seemed to Jada that to turn back now would be a mild insult to Charles. She would be making a statement she didn’t want to rely on Charles to be polite and follow the new rules.

And how would this look to the other women? Jada had told them of the new social custom established on the surface. Would she be a hypocrite if she turned away now? Jada admitted to herself that the answer to that question was a simple yes. So she disrobed and was soon washing herself on the opposite side of the shower room.

Charles was polite throughout the bathing. Over the soft hiss of the high pressure sprays, Jada thought she heard him sigh several times, but he was true to the social standard and did not steal glances at her. And as the end of Jada’s shower neared, she heard Charles turn off his faucet. He calmly walked across her field of vision as he left, and Jada’s peripheral vision caught a quick glimpse of a semi-erect penis before she thought to turn her head away.

Her mind drifted to the image as she finished bathing. It had never occurred to Jada that the common bathing areas might be more difficult for men than for women. But as she headed for her towel and robe, she had to admit it was much easier for a woman to hide sexual interest. Charles had tried his best to live up to the new moral codes. Jada sighed and made a mental note to give him a friendly smile later when she got the chance.

Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 6 AM

Fatima stretched at the break of the new day. The day’s new light was just touching the top of the hexagonal perimeter outside her bedroom window. She left her Red Mall bedroom and went down the circular staircase to the first floor, and then marched briskly through the silent rooms to the library.

A review of the sensor logs confirmed what her eyes were telling her about the outdoors. The temperature was at a minimum, -2C now and that was also the overnight low. Spring was in the air! Equinox day! There were twelve full hours of daylight now, and incredibly in only another six weeks they would see the sun at midnight. So fast! Fatima suspected it would take many, many seasons before the novelty of the 168-day year wore off.

She took a quick look at the census counter by the elevator, still 009:077. The number had remained constant since Husna’s and Lucia’s rescue. At the other mall locations, Green and Blue and Yellow, the situations of their Parties were still such a mystery, but at least they had evidently found enough stability to survive. Fatima offered a prayer of thanks for that.

It was such a joy to have her friend and confidant Husna again! She and Lucia had arrived at the home complex on Sunday about five hours after leaving the box maze. Initially Husna and Lucia were both somewhat reluctant to let the strange and fearsome looking autodoc treated their wasted bodies, but several of the women from Black Mall gave rave reviews on how the autodocs had cured them of the abuses of their enslavement. Lucia volunteered to give it a try.

It was a very interesting process to watch. The system spent a full five minutes probing her and running diagnostics, and then laid out a treatment schedule of six one-hour periods, two per day, and when Lucia nodded and Emily typed in her acceptance, the treatment began. Lucia’s body was covered neck to feet in sensors, and a moment later she said in a worried voice that she could feel and move almost nothing. She was breathing normally and could talk and open and close her eyes, but for everything else below the neck, it felt as if her body were almost turned off.

What followed were quivers over her entire body. At the end of the hour, the probes and sensors released her, and Lucia sat up. She said it felt as if her entire body was being lightly poked with pins and needles, and then she gazed at her arm. It was still thin, but the views of the bones were gone. Instead the arm showed clear evidence of new muscle and even a hint of body fat.

In three short days, Lucia and Husna were returned to full vitality. They now appeared as wiry adults, still a bit on the thin side but with healthy layers of sleek muscles which they were still learning how to use. The autodocs had transformed their wasted frames into athletic bodies. Power, speed, and endurance were all there. Over the last several days, their new job was learning how to use it, practicing in the gym and adding grace and coordination to their restored abilities.

Fatima next checked in with the monitoring team at the Hilton. There had been no change during the night. For three full days now, their monitoring abilities had ended at the barrier Ricardo’s team had constructed. From the sensor side, it appeared as a blank six-meter by four-meter wall of aluminum foil.

It only took a few hours to build. The four men under Ricardo started early Monday morning, creating a sturdy aluminum grid of folding and extension ladders lashed together with steel wire. They build the framework a few meters up-spiral from the entrance to Jacob’s and then covered its outward face with chicken wire. The final step was a double layer of aluminum foil folded and tied into the wire, first a horizontal layer and then a vertical. Afterwards Diego swung a small chicken-wire door closed and the barrier was complete. It was simple but effective and completely blocked their ability to scan beyond it.

Fatima’s strong opinion was to let the issue rest, and she was amazed that Amber was slowly winning converts to her idea that the Society should probe the barrier. At last night’s meeting, Mark was her latest convert. Risking a confrontation with a violent, depraved, and armed group still made no sense to Fatima. With four of the five Society’s pistols down in Wobanakik, any gun battle at Jacob’s would be their one gun against Ricardo’s five. The Society would be up against four .380 caliber pistols and an oversized 45-calibre pistol that used to belong to Uno. Fatima considered it almost insane to risk such a confrontation.

But Amber was persistent. Ricardo must know he was trapped in a box. His only way out would be to explore the surface. He would need to leave at least two people behind, one down in the Mall to prevent the servos from tearing the barrier down, and one person topside to let the returning exploration party back into the home complex. That meant Ricardo could take at most three people with him. There was much discussion at the meeting over how Ricardo might divide his group.

The debate to challenge the barrier revolved around a core question: Did the Society want to rescue the person or people left guarding the barrier? After long discussion, there was a general consensus that the Society would be interested in rehabilitating Jessica and Diego if they got the chance, and marginally Alfonso as well. Jenaro and Hernando and especially Ricardo were considered too hard-core and dangerous to deal with.

Should they engage with Black Mall again? Fatima was still resisting the idea, but there was another meeting scheduled at 1 PM today, and she was trying to keep an open mind. Fatima highly valued Mark’s opinion, and it unsettled her that he had switched to Amber’s argument for contact. Fatima took a deep breath and tried to put the issue out of her mind. The network reset at Wobanakik was six hours away. That should be her focus now. She got up and headed for the kitchen hoping to find some company for breakfast.

Time: Friday, April 1, 2019 7 AM

A final test on Diego’s chains and then they were off, a party of four consisting of Ricardo, Jessica, Jenaro, and Hernando. They began their hike heading slightly west of due south across the open grassland. The beginning of the berm maze was actually somewhat closer directly southwest, but further south along the barrier wall, there appeared to be pinkish structure, some sort of tower with stairs up to the top level of the berm maze, and that’s where Ricardo was headed.

There had been a nasty, slushy storm the previous Sunday, then three days of very moderate weather, and then finally yesterday one last taste of winter, cold blowing winds that had left a dusting of snow. The thin frost had not yet started to melt, but Ricardo expected it would soon.

For three days Ricardo had kept his men down in the Mall, everyone except Alfonso armed and waiting in ambush for their enemy to make an appearance. But the enemy had never shown, and Ricardo was now willing to gamble they never would. Alfonso was the lone guard at Jacob’s now, chained as before under the overhead door at Jacob’s. After some thought, Ricardo told Diego to leave Alfonso a gun. The male slave swore to Diego he would defend the opening with his life. Ricardo had grinned when he heard this. What a joke! What choice did Alfonso have?

And early this morning Diego was chained to a small area on the first floor at the southern vertex of their home perimeter. He had twenty four-liter jugs of water with him, several months’ worth of dry food, a mattress, a commode, and an ample supply of plastic bags to store his waste. At Diego’s request, Ricardo also let him have binoculars and a few books from the library.