Eos, Chapter 3: The Underground

Dameon arrived at the park at exactly 8:05 p.m. Panting slightly, both from the uphill ride and from relief that he wasn’t that late, he dismounted, pushed his bike into the bike lot, and quickly chained it up. He checked his watch again — no, Jade hadn’t messaged him. Presumably that meant their plan to meet was still a go.

The air was cool, with a unusual bite for a summer’s night, even in Canada. The park, tucked away between two skyscrapers, was only two blocks long, but a rim of thick trees along the outside created the illusion of isolation. Dameon shoved his hands into his jacket and jogged up the concrete pathway. The sun hadn’t quite set yet, but the park was cast in a twilight that lent another layer of privacy to the woods.

Jade was waiting on the open field in the center, of course. A grassy hill too rounded to be used for sports, but perfect for sledding in the winter. Or stargazing in the summer, as Jade appeared to be doing. She lay sprawled on her back, arms outstretched, gazing at the sky.

“Hey,” Dameon said once she was within earshot.

“You’re here!” she said, raising herself onto her elbows and checking her watch reflexively. “Ah, good, we have time.” She fell back onto the grass, patting the ground beside her. Dameon raised an eyebrow.

“Stargazing in the city? It’s hardly even dark.”

“Waiting for that first one is always the best. And in the meantime, cloud gazing works too. Come on. This grass is too comfortable not to enjoy it for a minute.”

“If you say so,” Dameon said, but he did lay down, stretching his legs down the gentle slope. It did feel nice. As much as he loved leading a search-and-rescue team, you could never stay long enough to enjoy all the beautifully wild places of ruined America. Then again, this grass was far from wild.

“Say something,” Jade said, still staring at the sky.

“Like what?” Dameon asked.

“I don’t know — oh! What did Commander Davidson want earlier?”

Dameon’s fingers dug into the packed dirt at his side. “It was Dan who wanted to talk to me. Gregory brought him. President Samuel sent him to make me an offer.”

“General Maxwell?” Jade rolled over to look at him, eyes wide. People never quite got used to the fact that Dameon was technically on first name terms with most of the uppermost level of the government, considering they were all duplicates of him or his brother. Not that he liked speaking to them.

“Yep.” She had been curious from the start about why a Dameon had deliberately excluded himself from Samuel’s inner circle — everyone who met Dameon was. He had long since told her about their offer and his rejection, though not all of the reasons why.

“The same as the first time?”

“Pretty much.” He decided not to tell her about the specific mission they wanted him for. He wasn’t sure how classified that information was.

“And what did you say?”

“What do you think? Dan’s a good guy, so I didn’t tell him to go to hell, but that’s as good as he’s going to get from me.”

“Hm.” She bit her lip, mulling over something. “Do you think they’ll keep bothering you about it?”

“Not if they know what’s good for them.”

“I guess not.” She rolled onto her back again, and at that moment her watch beeped — she’d received a text. Texting here, like so much else, was a shadow of what Dameon was used to back home. Rather than dozens of competing systems to connect people anywhere from relatives to complete strangers under both real names and pseudonyms, each person was assigned one account on the phone system when they turned eight. Through this account, and always under your real name, you could text or video call anyone who allowed you to by putting their fingerprint on your watch. The whole thing was entirely government-sponsored, and Dameon was sure they analyzed every word of the texts sent for red flags.

Jade frowned as she read the message. She typed a brief note in reply.

“Who was it?” Dameon asked when she lowered her arms and let out a sigh, looking back up at the stars.

“My sister. She got the results of her aptitude tests.”

“Not good news?”

“No. She had her heart set on Engineering. She got Accounting instead. She thinks she didn’t do well enough on the physics portion.” Jade sighed. “Just nerves, you know? But now it’s all decided. She starts next week.”

“That’s awful.” Dameon closed his eyes. But not unexpected.

“Yeah. I mean, maybe the system works and ninety percent of people wind up happy with what they get and she’s just an edge case, but it’s not about that, you know? It’s about the choice.”

Dameon nodded.

Jade’s hands closed around tufts of grass as if she wanted to rip them up by the roots. Then she came to a decision. Her gaze left the stars, and she jumped up in one smooth motion, holding out her hand to Dameon. “It’s late enough. Let’s go.”

Dameon took her hand and climbed to his feet, both concerned and curious. They must be going to see what she had refused to tell him earlier..

Her hand was warm in his, her frame silhouetted against the darkening sky. She paused. “Do you trust me, Dameon?”

“What kind of question is that?” Dameon demanded. Yes, he trusted her. She hadn’t turned him in when she’d seen the gun.

She gave a half laugh. “Yeah. It’s silly. It’s just that… you can’t tell anyone where I’m taking you tonight. Not Gregory, not anyone. Not even a hint.”

“Right. Just like you can’t tell anyone about” — he dropped his voice, because you could never be sure your watch’s microphone wasn’t on — “what I had earlier today.”

She exhaled. “Yeah. Okay. I trust you. Not to be dramatic, but people’s lives will depend on your silence. This is your chance to back out.”

“I’m game,” Dameon said firmly. Suspicion tingled in the back of his mind. Lives were supposedly at stake. She had decided to take him somewhere after learning that he possessed an illegal gun in direct defiance of the government. Neither of them had ever made any secret of their frustration for Samuel’s government. She could be taking him to meet anywhere from a couple black market sellers to an entire revolution waiting to happen. How overdramatic was Jade being? Samuel didn’t execute people for black-market capitalism.

Jade’s smile spread into a grin. “I hoped you would be. We’re going to need to leave our watches here,” she announced. “Geotracking. It’ll look like we’re spending a nice night in the park together.”

Jade didn’t have a penchant for drama except as a joke. This took it too far. “You’re serious,” Dameon said. “About all of it.”

“Deadly.” She took her watch off. “Come on, I know a good hiding place near a bench. I’ve done it plenty of times and it’s never been found.”

“If you say so,” Dameon said, unstrapping his own watch and following her down the hill.