Connection - 11

Author’s note to any reader who may jump into this chapter without reading the last one: I didn’t end the last chapter in a good spot, so this one is starting up in the middle of a conversation.

~1123 words

“Not if I can help it,” Kerra said with a laugh. “Although, as my sister pointed out, they could hardly fire me.”

“Then you’ve got to tell us!” Maru said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Kerra had met Maru within a week of being brought out of stasis. Kerra had been looking for a good bookshop because one of her favorite book series had been totally completed (and the author had died, of course) while she had been in stasis.

Kerra loved reading physical books best, and she wanted to get her hands on any of that series that might exist, which is how she had found Dark Lake and its somewhat sketchy print shop. She’d met Maru that day and they’d talked for hours.

Maru had known quite a bit about the topics that were relevant during Kerra’s life before stasis. Most people Kerra’s age didn’t care about history hundreds of years in the past. Maru was practically old enough where those events were almost recent when she was in school.

Maru loved history and enjoyed writing about it based on researching in other books, so when she’d met Kerra, she was ecstatic. She’d interview Kerra about this or that technology or political move, and while admitted she didn’t understand a lot of what happened in her day, her answers always seemed to satisfy Maru.

“Please Kerra,” Drigg begged. “I haven’t heard anything interesting in this place all day.”

“Drigg, you’re surrounded by books. There is no place in Abyssia that is more filled with physically interesting things than Dark Lake.”

Drigg was Maru’s grandson who’d come to work for her when he was just ten years old. Maru’s daughter had passed away due to anomaly-related complications, and Drigg didn’t have anyone else but Maru to go to.

“It’s clear that she’s never going to tell us, Drigg. I guess she doesn’t care about us and our poor, wasted minds, slaving away in this bookshop day after day, surrounded by false stories and never able to live one ourselves or even hear our friends’ who live for us. What ever shall we do?” Maru put a hand to her head as if she was in the uttermost depths of despair.

Kerra rolled her eyes, but said, “Fine. But you actually can’t repeat this, okay? There’s more people than just me at risk, and unlike me, some of them aren’t irreplaceable.”

“At their jobs?” Drigg asked.

“No, as in, if this story gets back to the authorities, perhaps some people will get in big trouble and maybe even be locked up or worse,” Kerra clarified grimly. “I doubt that would happen, but just in case.”

Drigg paled a little. “Alright then. I won’t tell a soul.”

Kerra cleared her throat awkwardly, unsure of how to begin. “Um, so you know my sister’s in like, a gang, right?”

Drigg and Maru both nodded.

“Well, I was talking about how much I’ve always wanted to visit the greenhouses down in the Heats.” Kerra figured that if her skin could allow her to blush, she would have. It was such a strange dream to have. “And they said they could get me down there. And so we went.”

They stared at her. “And?” Drigg demanded.

“We saw a big room of basil and it smelled like heaven and tasted so fresh, and then we saw tomatoes, but they weren’t ripe yet, but Blast… I mean, one of my friends found a big crate of ripe ones. And then we saw a room full of lily-of-the-valley! It was amazing I loved it so much.”

There was another moment of silence before Maru said, “Well, that’s all very well and nice dear, but what did you do?”

“What do you mean?” Kerra asked. “That’s it. We saw the greenhouses. Tasted some veggies, smelled some flowers…”

“That’s it? That’s your big illegal story?” Drigg asked incredulously.

Maru also looked unimpressed. “My dear, I’ve done far more illegal things than that. You didn’t even deface the place?”

Kerra was taken aback. “Of course not! Why would I?”

Drigg scoffed. “Who’s going to get in trouble from breaking into the greenhouses? Why all your secrecy? Maybe they’d fine you for the tomatoes and maybe for trespassing, but I bet people go down there all the time! We run an illegal printing press and the authorities haven’t cared whatsoever. You made it sound like what you were doing was an atrocity worthy of death.”

Kerra folded her arms. “I’ll have you know that we hotwired an elevator just to get down there!”

“Of course you did dear,” Maru said, “What else would you have done? Jumped?”

Kerra was beginning to feel hot as the wiring in her skin tried to keep up with the electrical signals her defensive brain was sending. “You know we did other stuff. That I hadn’t planned. My sister’s gang took stuff they weren’t supposed to take.”

Maru considered this, but Drigg rolled his eyes. “Just call it stealing. And what, did they kidnap a droid? Take a bucket full of algae with them? There’s not much mischief you can get into down there. And here you are worried we’re gonna tell someone and get your friends thrown in prison. This story’s boring. Not worth telling to anyone.”

“Hey, you wanted to hear it so bad! I don’t do this kind of thing very often. And they didn’t take algae,” she sneered. “They took a bunch of fertilizer. Seventy bags of it. I’ve been keeping it for them in my apartment. That’s right, harboring wrongfully obtained goods.”

Maru had stiffened at the mention of fertilizer. “And potentially dangerous goods at that,” she said carefully.

“Oh,” Kerra said quickly, “they’re not going to like, make a bomb or anything. Don’t worry.”

“Then why would they need that much fertilizer? I can’t imagine that they’re planning on starting a farm!” A smile crept into Maru’s voice but she still looked extremely worried.

So Kerra, seeing no way around it, explained everything, from why Shandi was leaving to Ruth’s reaction. By the end of it, Maru looked deeply sad and Drigg looked shaken.

“Godspeed,” Maru murmured when Kerra had finished. “I don’t know how she’ll make it, but I pray she will.”

And that was something else about Maru Kerra loved. Religion had almost completely died before Kerra had gone into stais, but Maru kept hers close and personal and ever-present. The only other religious people Kerra knew of now was Numbers’s parents, who, he had said were Muslim. And maybe that one guy who shouted about the end of the world near the government levels. Religion had become this rare and precious thing that intrigued Kerra, and Maru wore hers like a protective, comforting robe.