31. At Long Last
THIRTY-ONE
AT LONG LAST
Vivian
I wave my hand back and forth over the water, watching it ripple across the surface of the bathtub. Above me the lights are dim, sometimes flickering. They have been like this every day for the past month, and sometimes, when the flickering worsens and the dimming of the lights doesn’t seem to stop them, the power around me switches to a localized generator, and a loud rumbling sound fills the rooms. It scares me every time.
When the water stills, I wave my hand again and count how many ripples I make before the lights flicker. When the lights remain steady, a sense of indifference overcomes me with a streak of bleak rebellion, knowing people are dying of dehydration elsewhere on the ship. It reminds me I’m not alone in my misery. I’m not the only one who hates my father.
It’s been a month since I left the cell and entered another.
A month since I last saw Syasku.
Father told me Syasku is dead. He had been the one who set off the breach. He tried to escape and took out a half dozen soldiers in his attempt. The only way the soldiers were able to stop him was by triggering his collar. The amount of electricity unleashed ultimately killed him.
He was searching for me.
He died, and I wasn’t even there. I was drugged out of my mind, passed out, reeling from the news I was pregnant. At first, I didn’t believe he’d died; then I was shown footage of him massacring soldiers outside the very same elevator that brought me here.
I still don’t know if I fully believe it.
Part of me wants to believe he’s alive and is still being kept by Ursula, but I have no proof besides the footage. Footage I’ve watched a thousand times hoping for a clue, but it ends when the elevator door closes with Syasku’s body smoking on the floor, Muffin against the wall beside him, splattered with blood. After that, the video cuts out.
I demanded to speak to Muffin, but I’ve been told he’s gone as well.
The ripples fade across the now-cold water, and I try to find the willpower to rise from the tub.
The bathroom is the only place I’m allowed to be alone, and even then, I’m never alone for very long. Nurse Lena knocks on the door every ten minutes to make sure I haven’t tried killing myself, and when she’s not around, I’ve been cuffed with a bracelet that sounds an alarm if anything happens to me.
I’ve been relegated to a small portion of my father’s home. I’m only allowed in the large main foyer and the guest wing. Every other hallway and door is closed off. Sometimes I’m in Father’s medical room, but only with Nurse Lena present. My meals are delivered personally by her.
“I’m fine,” I manage to say loud enough when I hear her approach the other side of the door.
There’s a short pause. “Will you be out soon? We need to do another scan before the shift is over.”
“Soon,” I murmur, waving my hand across the water once more.
There’s another pause. “I’ll check back in a couple of minutes then.”
She walks away.
He’s alive. He has to be. Father and Ursula wouldn’t kill him if he was useful, would they? If he’s the source of this Genesis-8, Ursula would need him to continue studying it. Right?
But she has another naga to study now… or so I think. Asera, Syasku’s friend. Syasku’s gift. I frown.
If he’s still alive, he might be far more manageable than Syasku was.
Sighing, I study my pruney fingers. Nurse Lena will haul me out by force if it means keeping out of trouble, and seeing how much Father trusts her, she’s willing to do just about anything to stay on his good side.
Standing is an enormous effort. My belly has grown so large so quickly. Every day, I’m heavier than the last. I dry off and tug on a pair of loose sweatpants and a basic black shirt before slipping my feet into socks. After brushing and tying back my hair, I leave the bathroom and head down the hall toward the medical room Ursula brought me to on the first day. The door is open and Nurse Lena is already there waiting for me.
I haven’t seen or heard from Ursula since Father kicked her out—and told her to clean up her “mess.”
I sit on the bench and hand Lena a small cup with my urine in it. She checks my blood pressure and asks me the same questions she does every day. How I’m feeling, is there movement yet, so on and so forth… Afterward, she performs an ultrasound, checking on the baby’s growth.
Their limbs have formed, and lately, they’ve been growing. They have a tail, and so far their gender has been hard to figure out.
After my check up, Lena escorts me back to my bedroom and wishes me goodnight.
Staring blankly at the sparse room I’ve been given and the pile of Yulen research materials that Father had delivered to me to work on, I know I’m running out of time. With or without Syasku.
But it’s been a month with no opportunity presenting itself for me to risk an escape.
I could overpower Nurse Lena, but then I’d be confronted with the door, which needs a security code, and then an elevator for which another different code will be needed. If I make it that far, I’d have to reach one of The Dreadnaut’s ports and find a ship willing to give me passage for free, all of which is impossible because the entire ship has been on lockdown for months. And continues to remain in lockdown.
I’ve searched Father’s home for anything that could help me. Unfortunately, except for some extremely heavy antique furniture and valuable artwork, there hasn’t been much to make a weapon out of. Even the alcoholic bar in the foyer has turned up useless, the glassware plastic. The few bottles on display are glass but they’re out of reach, locked behind a glass. They’re the only items I could use as a weapon.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I look out the porthole on the wall across from me, my gaze landing amongst the stars. It’s… spectacular.
Father lives well, better than anyone else on the ship. I’d assumed his current wife and children lived with him too, but even they reside elsewhere. Father likes his privacy.
I’d give up mine again just to be with Syasku one more time.
The lights flicker again. I haul my body off the bed and leave the room, wandering down the empty guest hall and into the foyer, hoping the lights are less distracting somewhere else.
Feeling a strange sensation in my stomach, I freeze. When it happens again, I lift my shirt, seeing something push out from my belly. Placing my hand over the movement, my breath stifles. My baby’s moving. Awed and shaky, I rest my head in my hands. If things continue as they are, I’ll be going into labor sometime in the next couple of months, maybe sooner. I take a deep breath and then another.
I’m scared. I’d be scared if I were carrying a human fetus. Carrying an alien hybrid fetus is terrifying.
I hear noise coming from the back of the foyer.
Dropping my hand, I quiet my steps as I move to peek around the hallway corner.
Father is at the bar, pouring a drink. The glass to the liquor bottles is opened beside him.
I watch as he knocks one drink back and pours another. He fumbles with the bottle he’s pulled out, spilling some of the liquor onto the counter. My brows furrow. I’ve never seen him drink or be out of sorts before; he puts a lot of importance on appearance. Whether he’s stressed because of what’s happening on the ship, of my circumstances, or the Sovereign’s looming visit, I have no idea. For the most part, he avoids having anything to do with me and has made it clear that the only reason I am here is because he doesn’t want anyone else to know about my pregnancy.
I can’t tell if it’s because he’s ashamed or… wants to hold his cards close.
Straightening my spine, I step out of the hallway and walk over to him. “Father.”
He knocks back his drink. “I’m not in the mood to talk unless you’ve finally figured out how to override Yulen systems,” he responds after he’s cleared the contents of his glass, without so much as looking at me.
Stopping beside the open glass of liquor bottles, I place my palms on the bar. “I haven’t.” I probably never will, I know that now. Teams of people much smarter than me have tried and couldn’t do it. Why would I?
He sighs and his gaze shifts to me. “Then what do you want?”
“I want to see his body. I want to know what’s going on with the lights.”
He scowls. “The lights are not your problem, don’t bring them up again. And I told you it’s not possible.”
“You never told me why.”
“Because it’s been destroyed! Did I really have to say that?”
I don’t even flinch at the frustration in his voice.
Instead, I stare at him, his anger brimming. His anger has been aimed at me many times before, along with his irritation, boredom, and indifference. At one time, I would have done anything to avoid his wrath, his frustration, or the ease with which he could punish me without actually punishing me at all. In the back of my mind, I always knew I would never be able to accomplish what he had me for.
I think he always knew that too. I was just another one of his illegitimate kids borne from women who were heirs to vast fortunes or companies. I’m just another asset, useful until it’s not.
Yulen machines can keep someone alive a lot longer than any other. The AI within them knows how to keep a human body going, even on the brink of death. It’s why they’re so valuable and why there are so few of them left.
I suspect he wants to live forever.
As he seethes at me, the baby shifts in my belly. It gives me the courage to seethe back, kick and scream, and demand all the answers to the questions I never asked, keeping my mouth shut because…
It doesn’t matter anymore. I place my hand on my belly and let the baby’s wiggling calm me down.
They’re all I have left of Syasku. And I love them dearly, like their father. The brief time we spent together should have been traumatizing, far from being the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And it was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Somewhere back in that cell, I gained courage. I received love. I created life.
There’s no love here. I thought I loved my father. Now I’m not sure if I ever have.
“Go back to your room, Vivian, before I make you,” he threatens, reaching for another bottle.
I wish I had known I loved Syasku when we were together. I wish I’d told him. Syasku is worth loving, like our baby. He deserves all of my love and so much more.
My father deserves nothing.
All I see now is the ghost of a man who once stood proud, decorated in medals, leading a ship full of millions of people, and worshiped by all. A leader. A man who once could have had anything he desired because no one would dare stand against him for fear of gaining his ire.
As a child, I used to think he was a hero.
He’s small now, gaunt from stress with thick black rings under his eyes. His once luscious black hair is graying, and thinning. He has wrinkles where smooth skin used to be not that long ago. He reeks of alcohol and smoke. There’s weariness in his eyes when there used to be ambition. Whatever he’s going through, it’s affecting him.
There is not a single attribute he shares with Syasku, which only makes me love and grieve Syasku more.
Father was going to be humanity’s salvation, the hero we needed to take down the Ketts by returning to the war with weapons and resources to destroy them.
Like me with my research, he’s going to fail.
“Are you done staring at me?” he growls, waving his hand at me, eager for me to leave.
He doesn’t deserve my company, but he does deserve one last thing from me.
“Thank you,” I say, shifting back a step.
His eyes flash with confusion. Then it’s gone, replaced with a cold indifference as he returns his attention to the glass gripped in his hand. “For what?” he asks so offhandedly that I know he doesn’t actually care.
If it weren’t for him, I would have never met Syasku. I touch the scar on my chin.
But he deserves something else from Syasku and all the people he’s ever hurt, and all the people he’ll hurt in the future.
I reach out and snatch the closest liquor bottle from the shelf. He doesn’t even realize as he takes another sip from his glass. Bracing, clutching it with both hands and with all the force I can muster, I smash it against the back of his head.
His head jerks and the glass falls from his hand, breaking on the counter.
Raising the bottle, I hit him again. This time it smashes. “Folik asked me to put in a good word.”
He staggers and pivots in my direction. When I raise the bottle a third time, he knocks my arm away, and with a look of blind rage, backhands me. “You stupid bitch.”
I fall back, pain exploding across my face. Covering my cheek with my hand, I manage to remain upright. “That’s for Syasku.”
He wipes at the blood trickling down the back of his neck. He looks at his hand and balls it into a fist before looking over at me. “I’ll kill you for this.”
He lunges, and I jerk away, pivoting on my feet. I run to my room. Hearing his heavy boots stomping after me, I slam the door and grab a chair, positioning it under the handle. It won’t keep him out for long.
Feeling better than I have in weeks, consequences be damned, I twist from the door and face the room, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I grab the box with all my Yulen research and haul it into my arms. Lugging it to the tub, I dump everything in and turn on the water. As my bedroom door rattles and Father’s shouts fill my ears, I shut the bathroom door and watch as the papers, the books, the tech, and my notes are destroyed, wishing it would destroy my father too.