Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Holly stood in the middle of Mish’s living room as fourteen identical children formed a circle around her and stared. At her.
She had offered to do this a week ago, back when she was desperate to please six visitors who did not want to be stuck on Moone’s Landing overnight, but standing here now, surrounded by fourteen small beings with their mother’s orange hair, blank expressions, and their unsettling hive-mind coordination, Holly was beginning to regret her choices.
Stay calm, she told herself. They’re just children. Children who happen to share a single consciousness and could probably overwhelm her in seconds if they decided they didn’t like her.
Sweat prickled at her hairline.
Mish had given her rapid-fire instructions before leaving for a major harvest and cultivation session with Alyce in the garden.
Most of it had been a blur of feeding and bedtime schedules and warnings about which cabinets were off-limits.
Any hope Holly had of utilizing the “happy room” was dashed as Mish explained that the “happy room” was actually the basement, where the children would sit in the dark and hum in various harmonizing tones.
They loved it. Could do it for hours, as odd as it sounded to Holly, and it often put them to sleep.
But Mish couldn’t use that option very often, as it also reinforced their hive mind.
Being around people was the key to their maturity, so the happy room option was off the table.
But one thing had stuck in Holly’s mind: the children loved a certain animated show that transmitted from the Ursoa system. It was so popular with children of many species that it streamed on one of the rare long-range frequencies. If all else failed, Mish had said, put on the show.
All else was failing. Fourteen pairs of eyes blinked at her in perfect unison.
Holly wracked her brain. Which frequency was it? Mish had mentioned a number. Something with a seven in it. Or was it a nine?
Seventy-three. That was it.
She plastered on a smile that she hoped looked confident and not terrified. “Would you like to watch Vakka-Vakka Loo-Voo?”
Fourteen heads nodded in perfect synchronization.
Holly shuffled toward the large screen on the wall, the group moving with her like a school of fish around a piece of bread. She found the transmission controls and navigated to frequency seventy-three, silently hoping there would be no interference today.
There wasn’t. The screen flickered to life, and a trio of tentacled animated aliens appeared, dancing and singing in bright colors.
“Pip-pap-loo fruit is the sweetest treat! Pip-pap-loo fruit just can’t be beat!”
Holly had never heard of pip-pap-loo fruit. She suspected she never wanted to.
The children sat on the floor in two perfect rows and fixed their attention on the screen. Their synchronized staring was slightly unnerving, but at least they weren’t staring at her anymore.
Holly let out a long, relieved sigh and retreated to a chair where she could keep an eye on the children while working on her d-pad.
A message appeared, indicating a correspondence from Beenan.
She’d pulled some late nights going over the data on the mining retrofit and had sent back several possible solutions for the client to choose from.
Thankfully, Beenan had chosen a text message instead of insisting on another holo-call. Perhaps her “artistic” attire had so offended him, he couldn’t bear to look at her. Fine by her.
Beenan’s text was as clipped as his voice: The clients have reviewed your proposals and chose option two. They expect a detailed spec report in three days to put the project back on track. If any other client issues arise, I will reach out.
That was it. Short and to the point. No thank you, just acknowledgment of the work, a deadline, and a warning that she might be called upon to do it again.
Holly hoped she wouldn’t hear from Beenan again until her three months were up.
Still, she had to admit, the nits that had appeared in her account made the work feel almost worth it. Almost.
Despite the Sol-Arc project that would eat more of her time, she had accomplished good stuff this week.
The new circulator had been installed, and now the air flow under the dome was noticeably improved.
The stagnant smell that had plagued the hotel guests was gone.
One other turbine was running slower than it should, but Sam had added the replacement parts to his next parts order, paid for by her Sol-Arc job. Progress, even if it was incremental.
Sam had repaired the fire mitigation system in the lounge.
Thankfully, the problem had only been in the lounge, but he could not say what caused the problem.
Corrosion had built up on the connections that prevented the system from detecting smoke or high heat.
Sam admitted that he couldn’t see a reason for the corrosion.
He found no moisture behind the panel that housed the system, only the presence of a chemical he hadn’t expected.
It was strange, but did someone do it? Sam couldn’t say, but he didn’t like it, especially combined with the oven sabotage.
That was also fixed at the same time. Sam had located a replacement power cylinder and installed it himself, but it had taken three days to arrive.
In the meantime, Holly had made good use of Harry’s heating units.
She now knew far more than she ever wanted to about Harry’s personal life, his opinions on every resident of Moone’s Landing, and his theories about who was secretly in love with whom.
The man was a champion gossiper, and three days of her baking in his shop had given him ample opportunity to share.
She had seen Rasker, but only in passing. He came into the lounge most days, where Holly now regularly offered baked treats and simple meals. The hotel guests had left far happier than they had arrived, and Harry had expressed hope that they would leave a positive review.
The residents started coming to the lounge, too.
They were wonderful to try new recipes on, and so she had expanded her menu beyond muffins and pot pie.
Cookies, cakes, casseroles. Not all at the same time, of course.
She wasn’t a full-time cook or baker. You got what you got when you came in, and if you were late, you were out of luck.
But the food was well-received, and importantly, Holly loved making and serving her offerings.
On the screen, the tentacled aliens had moved on to singing about the importance of sharing. The children watched in rapt attention, their small bodies perfectly still.
Holly allowed herself to relax and the hours passed more easily than she had expected.
The children were remarkably well-behaved, likely because their shared consciousness meant there were no squabbles or disagreements.
When it was time for bed, they took direction without protest. They knew when these things were supposed to happen, and they moved through the routine of changing clothes, washing up, using the bathroom, and climbing into their beds with an efficiency Holly found almost eerie.
By the time Mish returned, all fourteen children were asleep in their shared room, tucked under blankets in neat rows.
Mish came through the door looking disheveled, her wild orange hair escaping from its bun in every direction. Garden dirt smudged her clothes and streaked across her forehead. But it wasn’t her appearance that caught Holly’s attention. It was her expression.
“What’s wrong?” Holly asked, rising from her chair.
Mish closed the door behind her and leaned against it, her shoulders slumping. “Someone dug up a large section of the garden.”
Holly’s stomach dropped. “What?”
“Destroyed it.” Mish’s voice was tight. “Alyce and I were able to save some of the plants, but not all of them. They were torn apart. Roots exposed. Some will have to be started over from seed.”
Holly stood up. “Do you know what caused it?”
“At first, I thought it might have been an animal.” Mish pushed away from the door and moved to sink into a chair. “It looked like something had been digging. But the more I looked at it, the more I didn’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“The fencing around the garden beds is very effective. Nothing has ever gotten through it before.” Mish rubbed her forehead, leaving another streak of dirt.
“And it was too methodical. A creature, like Bean, would dig a couple holes randomly, but this was different. Each plant was uprooted. One after another, down the row. Like someone was working through them systematically. And then I thought about your oven, and it can’t be a coincidence. ”
News about the oven had spread pretty fast when people noticed Holly carrying her baked goods across the square to and from Harry’s shop.
Holly told them what had happened. It was better that everyone knew.
“If this is a second act of sabotage, it will start to cause alarm,” she said.
“Destroying the food supply is a big problem.”
“It wasn’t completely destroyed, but it could have been.
” Mish spread her hands helplessly. “Everyone has access to the garden. We all take from it in the absence of NuProd devices that offer a better variety. Protein paste and carbohydrate powder are important ingredients, but the fresh produce offers better nutrition. We all need that.” She shook her head.
“I can’t think of a single reason why someone would do this. ”
“Are you sure?” Holly asked quietly. “If someone is trying to make people like you leave Moone’s Landing, this would help that along.
” Holly crossed her arms and paced the living room.
“Destroy the food supply. Sabotage the lounge’s oven.
Make life harder. Turn residents against each other by making them suspicious and afraid.
” She met Mish’s eyes. “It could be the one thing that makes people say, ‘Forget it. I’ve had enough.’”
Mish was silent for a long moment. Her expression shifted from confusion to something harder. More calculating.
“The only person who truly benefits from getting people to leave,” she said slowly, “is Rasker.”
Holly’s chest tightened. She wanted to argue. Wanted to defend him. But she couldn’t deny the logic.
“You’re right,” she admitted. “He does.”